A3I
by nodsri
Summary: Life goes on, even after the Third Impact.
1. A3I : Homeostasis

It was a beautiful night that would make anyone want to look up to the sky.  
  
The inky blackness of the void, broken only by the tiny pinprick of the stars and their ancient points of light. The large full moon lighting up the cloudless sky, which was reflected on the quietly lapping waves of the beach.  
  
As well as the red ring of forlorn souls that now permanently orbits the earth. It stretches from one end of the horizon to the other, a clear red band made of billions of individual points of light, each one the manifestation of a dead human soul.  
  
She stood there, looking up at the sky, subconsciously trying to count them, to pick one out, to find her own point of light up above with the dead, for that was what she still felt like.  
  
"I wish you'd stop doing that, it's creepy," said a voice behind her. She was familiar with the voice, so it didn't startle her. She continued to stare at the ring of souls.  
  
"Asuka, I've been dead. We've both been dead. That's even creepier, isn't it?" Ritsuko replied.  
  
"Baka," Asuka silently whispered, as she spun on her heels and went back the way she came. The words "it's dinnertime" were barely audible to Ritsuko, as she continued to look at the ring of souls, three quarters of the Earth's population, innocent victims of an uncompleted Third Impact.  
  
"Maya, Misato.. What's the matter? Don't you want to come back?" Ritsuko asked softly to the sky.  
  
  
  
NEON  
  
GENESIS  
  
EVANGELION  
  
A3I: Homeostasis  
  
  
  
Ritsuko and Asuka ate with the usual silence. Shinji had already excused himself, his bowl of miso soup and soba noodles left unfinished. Asuka broke the silence, setting down her chopstick on the table.  
  
"I am done," she simply stated, then got up and started to leave. "Asuka," Ritsuko started. "Don't forget the Unit 02 activation test tomorrow," she said, barely raising her tired head.  
  
"Of course," Asuka said simply, as she walked out the door of Ritsuko's apartment, leaving her alone at the table. Ritsuko sipped her own bowl of soup, with its perfect balance of ingredients. Cooked with great care and attention with her own hands.  
  
"Curried ramen noodles." Ritsuko mumbled to herself, smirking at the memory. Misato would have fed the Children curried instant ramen noodles. Misato even tried to feed her, Ritsuko, the same stuff. Ramen noodles boiled in water, with curry powder randomly thrown in mixed with whatever raw ingredients Shinji happened to bring back from the Super K outlet. The result was almost always a stinking concoction that made her retch after three bites.  
  
She would have given the world itself for just one more chance to eat Misato's horrible cooking.  
  
A loud squawk broke her reverie.  
  
Ritsuko smiled, lazily getting up from the table and reaching inside the fridge for a side of smoked herring. "Hungry little one, aren't you, Pen- Pen?" Ritsuko asked, with as much affection as she could muster.  
  
A louder squawk was her answer as the penguin tried to reach for the fish. Ritsuko dropped it to the ground, and Pen-Pen quickly gobbled up the offered morsel of food before quickly waddling away from her.  
  
"You're still waiting for her," Ritsuko whispered bitterly. "Stupid bird."  
  
Asuka could hear the cello playing behind the door to Shinji's apartment. There was no escaping it. She felt her feet becoming rooted to that particular spot outside his door. She exerted her willpower, and felt relief when the strength returned to her legs yet again. She tore herself from Shinji's door, walking at full speed towards the only staircase the apartment building had. Despite the burning sensation in her heart that appeared when she heard the plaintive moaning of that cello, a part of her was glad that the elevator was broken, and the only way to her own apartment upstairs was past Shinji's door.  
  
"Tomorrow." Asuka softly whispered to herself.  
  
"The first activation of an Evangelion since Third Impact," Shigeru softly said to no one in particular. "We're all mad," he concluded. He himself had to be pretty mad to agree to the position of Acting Commander of NERV. Yet, he had wanted to live, and there seemed to be no other option than to reactivate the Evangelions, the very tool of humanity's destruction. The alternative was to return to the ring of souls that encircle the earth, trapped between death and Heaven. Shigeru surveyed the scene around him. It was the hollowed out crater where the Geofront once stood, a dead hole in the ground that once spawned the Black Moon of Lilith. The giant parts of the Lilith-Rei creature lay scattered over the countryside, her head, split in two after the Third Impact, lay offshore, her dead eyes, the size of a mountain, were still open and stared back at him in that dead, sightless way that still chilled him. The ocean, once several miles away from the city, now reclaimed the land, linking up with the Ashino lakes, the shorelines merely several hundred meters away from where he stood.  
  
Eva unit 02 stood in the middle of the crater, supported by makeshift scaffolding as last minute systems checks were conducted on its systems. The umbilical cable that provided it with power was detached, and the Eva had been still, perhaps even dead, ever since the day of Third Impact. Yet everyone there felt a palpable fear that it would go berserk at any moment and everyone worked quietly, as if afraid to awaken it.  
  
Tomorrow, Asuka will return to the entry plug, and reawaken the world's last  
  
remaining Evangelion. "The Third Impact must not be completed" he reminded himself, trying to brace his soul for the horror that must come.  
  
Ritsuko dreamed, or rather, Ritsuko remembered.  
  
She had made up her mind. She had pressed that button. Nothing happened. She felt panic, and grabbed the handheld out of her pocket.  
  
"Refused by Caspar... Mother.. You choose him over me?" Ritsuko asked, her words quickly drowned out by the blasphemous horror that spewed forth from Gendo's mouth.  
  
"Akagi Ritsuko, I really do love you"  
  
"Liar," Ritsuko spat out. Then it was like an invisible hand pushed her back, into the sea of LCL. Rei. Above the LCL. Rei. But wasn't she with Gendo? Rei, floating? Rei. LCL. Rei. LCL. Then, Maya. Maya felt soft, warm. Maya was afraid but in her arms the fear was gone. Misato. She had felt Misato's presence, but .. Rei... in the LCL where it felt.. warm.  
  
Ritsuko forced herself awake, her mouth gasping for air, sweet air. It wasn't LCL."Not LCL.. It's air.. It's 21 percent oxygen in a 78 percent nitrogen suspension, air, " she whispered to herself, trying to rid her mind of the memory.  
  
Her clock read 4 am. She could hear the chirping of crickets. She sighed. Once the memories came back there will be no more sleep for her. She stood up from the bed, opening the dresser. Misato's dresser. Which was in Misato's apartment. Which still had Misato's bad taste in furniture, her fridge, her pet penguin. Ritsuko grabbed her day clothes and put them on, deciding to walk softly downstairs so as not to wake Shinji or Asuka with the tapping of her heels.  
  
Shinji lay there, his SDAT earphones still attached to his ears, but there was no sound coming from the player. The batteries had died out an hour ago. He looked at the now-familiar ceiling, and heard footsteps outside the door that he recognised as Ritsuko's. He tried to ignore it, but he knew he couldn't.  
  
Tomorrow, Asuka will once again pilot the Evangelion. Asuka will once again enter the hell that was the life of a Child, to face again the returning Angels. While he will never, ever, do so again.  
  
"Don't you ever sleep, Aoba?" Ritsuko asked as she approached him, standing still as a statue on the lip of the crater. The gentle lapping of the waves on the beach answered her. Fine, be that way, she thought to herself. "I'll be down there," she said curtly, walking away. It really wasn't his fault that he hated her, she knew. It was entirely hers, for standing behind Gendo and his insane plans.  
  
Dawn broke as a NERV helicopter landed on the test site. Shigeru ran up to it as Asuka got off, his hand extended in greeting. "Welcome back, Asuka," he enthused, "everything's ready and we can start as soon as you say the word," Shigeru said as Asuka ignored him.  
  
"Mama," said Asuka silently, as she gazed on the rebuilt Unit 02 for the first time in a year. She looked on it in awe, almost reverently.  
  
Shinji worried about Asuka, of course, but he tried to push it to the back of his mind. Today was important to him too, the first day of school. They have finally decided to reopen the schools, and he craved it, waited for it anxiously as a sign that he really was getting on with his life, that he did the right thing when he refused to complete the Third Impact and return all humanity to Heaven. Shinji slung his backpack, with his laptop inside, over his left shoulder and walked alone to the rebuilt Tokyo-03 Middle School building.  
  
"All right, Asuka, remember, this is just a test," said Ritsuko's voice, coming in through the radio. "Jawohl, jawohl, no heroics, no fancy moves, you already told me this yesterday!" being Asuka's irritated reply.  
  
"Inject the LCL" Ritsuko commanded the technicians. "Begin the A-10 nerve connections as soon as she starts breathing LCL," she finshed.  
  
Shinji didn't recognize the faces of the schoolchildren. Some of them looked like his schoolmates from before, others were new, probably children of new NERV staff, or perhaps he never really recognized anyone before, being too busy with the life of an Eva pilot. He resolved not to let himself be locked out of life again. Today was the day he begins life anew.  
  
Shigeru and Ritsuko both stood in awe as the mighty Evangelion took its first few steps, effortlessly clearing a distance of several hundred feet in less than a minute. Its arms moved with the fluidity of a trained dancer, the fingers holding the Progressive Knife, the blade extended.  
  
"No matter how many times I look at it, it's still awesome," Shigeru commented. "So, some things don't change?" queried Ritsuko absent-mindedly as she read the reports that came in to her computer terminal. There was a moment's silence, before Shigeru turned his face to her, his eyes suddenly cold and hard as Gendo's eyes used to be.  
  
"That is only on the surface, Dr. Akagi. Everything has changed," he said bitterly, before refocusing his attention on Unit 02.  
  
"Class Rep?" Shinji asked the girl. He felt he recognized the girl with the brown hair and pigtails and almost by reflex, walked down the corridor to approach her, his hand tentatively reaching to tap her on the shoulder.  
  
At the sound of his voice, she turned around. It was indeed, Hikari Hokari, Shinji's old Class Rep back in the days that seemed long past. The freckles were gone now, and she was significantly thinner than he had remembered her, but it was indeed, her. A familiar face in an unfamiliar world. She had recognized him, he could tell by the sudden change in her expression when she saw him.  
  
"Ikari Shinji..." Hikari said breathlessly, her face a jumble of conflicting emotions which did not last long, for one emotion, one feeling, quickly rose above the others and registered in her face.  
  
Pure hatred.  
  
"Murderer" the word slid off her lips so naturally, with the weight of truth behind them. Shinji stood there dumbstruck by the force of her accusation. "Killer. Murderer," Hikari whispered, louder and louder, until the words drowned out the normal conversation in the school hallways. Several other students nervously walked away, yet many stayed, and perhaps, they shared Hikari's conviction.  
  
Shinji tried to stammer out a denial, but he knew there will never be an explanation, or justification, for his part in the Third Impact. He only managed to mouth the word "no". Her fist hit her target, and Shinju crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach. It had hurt him even more than when Toji hit him so long ago.  
  
Hikari stood angrily over him, eyes narrowed. Shinji accepted his fate, as she began to kick him in the head, chest and abdomen, wordlessly grunting out her hatred with each blow.  
  
It took two NERV bodyguards to subdue her.  
  
Shinji's battered form was unceremoniously bundled into the back seat of the NERV car, both his bodyguards wordlessly getting in the front seats and immediately began to drive away.  
  
"Is that so?" Ritsuko asked over the phone.  
  
Asuka recognized the tone of voice immediately. Misato sounded that way when Shinji fell into the Sea of Dirac. Misato sounded that way when Rei blew herself up.  
  
"Send him home, of course. I'm on my way. No, that will NOT be necessary."  
  
Baka Shinji, Asuka mouthed to herself. What could he do to himself now, on his first day of school? She fiddled with the suction controls of the plug suit nervously. This wasn't the best way to celebrate a succesful activation test.  
  
Ritsuko set the phone down, turning to face Asuka. "We're going home. No time to change out of the plugsuit. "  
  
"And one of us needs to talk to your friend Horaki," Ritsuko said with a chilling finality.  
  
Shinji sat on the edge of his bed. A twinge of pain tore through the fiber of his being, travelling up his spinal cord from the stomach to his ribs straight to his brain by way of a bruised head where Hikari kicked him.  
  
The door opened and Ritsuko marched in, interrupting Shinji's solitude. In an instant, she was there, face to face with him.  
  
"Shinji-kun, hold still," Ritsuko softly said, as her hands probed and examined his face and chest. He didn't turn away, he wanted to, and he felt he needed to, but Ritsuko was firm and persistent, and Shinji neither protested nor turned away as Ritsuko finished her cursory medical examination. "Good, it's just bruising and some wounded pride. If you want, Shinji, you can take some of the painkillers in my apartment." she said, smiling at him.  
  
"Ritsuko-san," Shinji said, softly. "Please, forget about me," he said. It disturbed him that Ritsuko seemed to care so much for someone as undeserving.  
  
She looked at him; her right hand still cradling his jaw, the fingers delicately placed around a nasty bruise. Her fingers felt icy cold. They have always been icy cold, for as long as he could remember.  
  
"No, Shinji-kun, I will never again forget about you. Every one of us has a place, as long as he is remembered. You will find your place in this world," she tried to assure him.  
  
"Even in your position?" Shinji asked, biting his lip with bitterness.  
  
"Even in my position," Ritsuko confirmed. "My prison sentence is the position that I naturally deserve. The suspension of that sentence in exchange for defending humanity one more time against the Angels, is the position that I have earned."  
  
Shinji looked up, confusion in his eyes at that remark.  
  
"Listen to me, Shinji-kun," Ritsuko said slowly. "The fact that you are here, with me, in this moment, is your position now. But there's a position, a place for you, in this world that you can earn for yourself. You realized it when you decided to return to this world."  
  
Ritsuko sighed. Perhaps the boy didn't understand.  
  
"Now, Shinji-kun, you know I have to do some things at the Geofront. You'll be all right..." She paused, she knew she was running out of words. How did Misato live with someone so fragile, so distant?  
  
"I will see you for dinner, that's a promise, Shinji-kun."  
  
Her heart sank a little to see his head fall, his eyes fixed upon his feet, proof positive her words had little to no effect on him. She stood up, placing a calming hand on Shinji's shoulder, feeling his muscles tense up the instant her flesh made contact with him. She slowly walked out the door, and after the door closed, immediately pulled out her datapad from the pocket of her white lab coat. Her eyes narrowed as she read the display, and the guards could hear her mutter "destardo is still manifesting" over the clicking of her heels as she left.  
  
"There it is again!" The operator shouted. Shigeru stood over the man, looking at the readout from the MAGI. Shigeru snarled. A blue pattern. An Angel. "The other MAGIs are confirming it sir," the operator continued. "Berlin, Houston, Beijing, Putrajaya…" he recited names of the concurring systems, almost as if it was necessary.  
  
"Dear God, no, no.." Shigeru muttered.  
  
His worst fears were coming true, and it had only been five hours since Unit 02 was reactivated.  
  
"But why Paris?" he asked, surprised by the unusual location for an Angel to appear.  
  
"It's gone!" the operator shouted, causing a hubbub of commotion to break out as the other computer operators trained satellites on the French capital and tapped into the millitary and civillian communications and broadcast systems, trying to get a visual confirmation.  
  
"Find it!" Shigeru shouted. "Find it now!"  
  
"Forget it," came the sound of a woman's voice from behind him. Shigeru whirled around to see Ritsuko walking unconcernedly past the various flashing monitors. "Where were you?" Shigeru asked, the stress evident in the hostile tone of voice.  
  
"With the Children," Ritsuko replied coolly. "You won't find the Angel if you look for it," Ritsuko said, being as cryptic as usual. "Stand aside," she commanded one of the computer operators , quickly taking his seat. Ritsuko's fingers danced across the keyboard, while Shigeru stood behind her, jaw clenched in anger. If it were up to him, she'd be rotting in jail for genocide, not sitting there, mocking him with supercompetence.  
  
"Nothing's happening."  
  
"That's what I want," Ritsuko replied. "I've reprogrammed the MAGI to look away for five minutes every time it gets a blue pattern. This Angel's smart enough to know we're looking for him, so we're going to pretend we're not looking for him."  
  
Shigeru shrugged. Damn her, and her complete mastery of the MAGI. "Now, commander, I have an Evangelion to check up on, and cook dinner for the Children, " she said, getting up and getting ready to leave.  
  
Asuka and Hikari listlessly bounced the basketball around the empty court. It was almost dusk; the redness of the sun temporarily masking the damnable belt of red that circled the earth. Asuka still wore her plugsuit; Hikari was still in her school uniform. The exercise felt good, and was a welcome relief from the horror that was the Horaki family residence. The stench of unremoved garbage, the table set for three with the food lying rotted on the plates. It was hard to even talk to her inside such a horrible place.  
  
Sweat was beginning to break through Hikari's skin, Asuka could see the damp patches on the sleeves of her blouse. Asuka smiled a little seeing her friend make the effort to steal the ball from her. She loved seeing people strive. It made them look nobler somehow.  
  
"I have to stop," Asuka said, finally, just as Hikari was setting herself up for a three point shot. "Ritsuko's cooking tonight," she finished, smiling. Hikari nodded her assent, the ball falling away from her hands as she reached her arms towards Asuka, holding her friend in a tight hug that seemingly renewed their friendship.  
  
"Tell Shinji I'm sorry. I promise I'll treat him better," she said, trying to apologize.  
  
"Just don't be a stranger, ever again," Asuka said as she broke the hold and stepped back to look her friend in the eye, where there was now a tiny little spark of joy that replaced the raging fire of misplaced rage that was there before.  
  
Asuka walked home, under an blood red archway in the night sky, the angry light of a full moon rising unable to blot it away. She felt some satisfaction at her achievements today, having successfully piloted an Eva again, and brought Hikari back from the brink. No matter how mad the world had become, she had managed to bring some things back to normal. Dinner tonight should be good. 


	2. A3I : Transistasis

Tokyo-03, the city of the future, was gone. Destroyed when Unit 00's self – destruct system took out the Sixteenth Angel. The armament buildings, gone. The Eva power sockets under the asphalt, gone. The levers and gears that lowered civillian buildings into the Geofront, gone. The Geofront, too was gone, taken up into space as the Black Moon, the Egg of Lilith … but NERV remains. And as long as NERV remains, there would always be occupants of apartment block 17 in the suburbs. Someone to keep her company, or at least, be in close proximity. Ritsuko sighed, feeling the tiredness wash over her as she climbed up the stairs to what was once Misato's apartment. There was dinner to cook, then she had to check with the MAGI about the blue pattern signal they found this morning. If it was a bona fide Angel, then there's an Eva to prep into battle. All by herself, because everyone else who knew what to do was dead.  
  
  
  
NEON  
  
GENESIS  
  
EVANGELION  
  
A3I: Transistasis.  
  
The chunk of salmon sizzled as it hit the frying pan, attracting the attention of a very peckish hot water penguin. "Pen-pen, bad bird!" Ritsuko mock-threatened as the bird rubbed itself ingratiatingly against her hose- covered leg, much like a cat would.  
  
"Oh, all right. I'm spoiling you," Ritsuko said, smiling as she broke off a hot piece of salmon, offering it to Pen-pen, who wasted no time grabbing the fish with its beak, the morsel of fish rapidly disappearing down it's throat. Ritsuko reached out a hand to pet Pen-pen's head, but the penguin had already waddled away before her hand could reach it.  
  
"Ungrateful bird," Ritsuko snarled.  
  
"Ungrateful hag," Gendo said to her, the day after she destroyed the Dummy Plugs. She hatefuly resisted every word that bore its cold uncaring judgement into her skull, as she sat on the cold steel bench in NERV's brig, head bowed, fists clenched tight in hate.  
  
"It's not worth it, Gendo," she said to him, soft enough for him to need to strain to hear her. "Rather than face Instrumentality with you, any woman would prefer death! There's no glory in standing besides you in the face of God…" Ritsuko said, a bitter tear leaving her eye, running across the mole on her cheek. "I'd rather be judged alone, than be the one that carries you to heaven"  
  
"You are a disappointment. Perhaps the trait is inherited." Gendo said, before he had the lights turned out.  
  
"I hope you burn in hell with me, Ikari. All of you," Ritsuko wept bitterly in the dark.  
  
"Ritsuko! Baka! Pay attention when you're cooking!" Asuka's shrill voice broke through Ritsuko's reverie.  
  
"Huh, Asuka, what?" Ritsuko asked, confused, then the burnt smell registered in her brain. The salmon was ruined to the point even Pen-Pen wouldn't touch it. Asuka stood in front of her, her hand still on the switch that turned the gas burner on and off.  
  
"I'm sorry, I must have dozed off.." Ritsuko said, trying to find an excuse.  
  
"I'm sorry about the fish," said a small voice behind them. It was Shinji, looking on nervously at the two women,uncertain how he should react to the situation.  
  
"Pizza night," Ritsuko said with resignation.  
  
They sat in a semicircle facing the TV watching reruns of the Japanese version of "Who wants to be a millionaire". A fat man was visibly sweating as he tried to find the answer, finally wringing his hands in despair and telling the host he was giving up.  
  
"Fool. The answer's transistasis," Ritsuko said dismissively. "The opposite of homeostasis, the biological force that moves towards change."  
  
"Is there such a word, Ritsuko-san? " Shinji asked. "Yes, Shinji. Homeostasis is the natural tendecy of living organisms to remain the way it is. The desire to remain constant. Transistasis is what makes us grow, change, without it, there would be no growth, no change."  
  
"So this transistasis is a good thing, right? It makes us better than before?" Shinji asked, as the crowd clapped in appreciation at the efforts of the fat contestant.  
  
"Baka. See what happens when you skip school?" Asuka sneered at him, yet with a twinkle in her eyes. "The two forces balance each other. If you were in a state of total transistasis, you'll have no control of your own body temperature, your blood pressure, your heart rate. You'll die trying to cope with all the changes to the environment."  
  
"She's right, Shinji-kun. Too much homeostasis, however, and you get stuck. You'll simply age thoroughout the years but never grow," Ritsuko said calmly, taking a final bite from the pizza.  
  
"Take a look at us, and our daily routine. I go to work, and Asuka is still an Eva pilot. Even after Third Impact, some things remain the way they were. Think of that as homeostasis," continued Ritsuko.  
  
"Now look at yourself. You've decided never to pilot Eva again. You've decided to start going to school again. You're taking steps to building a life that doesn't involve NERV, or the Angels. Maybe one day, you won't need either myself or Asuka around, " Ritsuko said, as Asuka gave her a weird look.  
  
"I think I understand, " Shinji said. His head was swimming a little from the lecture, and he really, really didn't get all of it, but he kind of felt this transistasis concept was interesting. The power to change.  
  
"Agh! Dumkopf!" Asuka yelled at the TV as the contestant asked to use a lifeline.  
  
"Do you know the answer to that, Ritsuko-san?" Shinji asked.  
  
"C" Ritsuko replied, engrossed in the show. She felt strangely focused watching the show, she could feel her mind work trying to remember what was the world's tallest building, pre-Second Impact. There was no pressure on her to be correct, no deadly price to pay for a wrong calculation.  
  
For the first time in a long time, Ritsuko Akagi, Chief Scientist to NERV, felt utterly content, sitting there with Asuka and Shinji trying to answer a TV game show.  
  
"You're wrong, Gendo," Ritsuko silently thought to herself as the TV contestant got the answer right, a C. "You're nothing. I have your son. I have a life of my own. I die a free woman."  
  
The three of them continued to watch the show in silence. Pen-pen waddled in, curious at what the humans were doing, setting himself up next to Shinji and standing there looking at the TV. Shinji picked up the penguin and placed it on his lap, the bird unprotesting, as he wrapped his arms around Pen-Pen like a big plush toy. Ritsuko noticed, but said nothing.  
  
Several hours later, Asuka and Shinji retired to their respective apartments, getting ready for bed. Shinji didn't feel like playing the cello tonight, so he shut the curtains to his window, before turning out the lights. The red glow from outside made it hard to sleep. Tonight, he felt like he wanted to.  
  
The power to change, he thought pleasantly to himself.  
  
Ritsuko didn't want to sleep just yet, so she stood by the window, looking out to the hillsides and the giant Rei-Lilith hand that defiantly lay there on the ground, like a monstrous mountain that glowed red under the ring of souls in the sky. She stood there, sighing. The Angel Lilith, the Second Angel, caught and used by NERV to produce the very LCL that the pilots breathed inside the Evangelions. The very Angel she thought posed the least harm, was the one that triggered the Impact. Which one of them will return first, she wondered. The Third? Fourteenth? Sixteenth? Or will the return of Man prompt the appearance of the theorized Eighteenth Angel? She sighed, and turned in for the night. The MAGI would provide the data she needed tomorrow. She downed two sleeping pills to guard herself from the dreams, and let her head hit the pillow.  
  
"Red, that colour I hate," said the voice inside Shinji's dream.  
  
"Ayanami…" Shinji heard her voice behind him in the train carriage he often dreamed about. Ritsuko had said the train represented his soul, and its endless moving represented his passage through life. But what Ayanami represented, he didn't know. He never told Ritsuko about Ayanami.  
  
"Ikari-kun," said Rei, her voice small, yet quietly determined. "Did you try to understand?"  
  
Shinji did not turn behind to face the dream Rei, instead he focused his attention to the scenery outside the window, constantly moving yet remaining the same.  
  
"I think I do now, " he said softly. "You gave me what I wanted."  
  
"Ikari-kun," said the dream Rei, "Red, that colour I hate. Rain, the thing you hate…"  
  
"But, I can learn to love the rain. Just like you can learn to love Red. I think.. I think Red cannot hate you. Ritsuko said, hate is something we choose to keep."  
  
The scenery outside changed to the old Geofront. Shinji felt a chill run up his spine.  
  
"I only wish I was wasn't so disposable," Shinji said, as the scenery changed to the corridors and hangars of NERV headquarters.  
  
"Ikari-kun, the choices you made, the point of the view you see the world with, it is all your doing. Without you, you have no world. You don't see it?"  
  
The scenery changed again, this time to the cold, dead, dark hell that was Terminal Dogma. Shinji involuntarily looked away, catching a glimpse of the black shoes that Ayanami used to wear when she was alive. Alive.  
  
"Don't worry, all living things have the potential to return to it's usual shape," said another voice. Mother.  
  
"Mother?" Shinji said, whirling around in his dream, to see nothing but an empty train carriage.  
  
"As long as the will to live exists…"  
  
Shinji's eyes opened to bright sunlight. He had better hurry if he wanted to make it to school.  
  
"What is going on here?!" Ritsuko shouted to the room as she stormed in. "Why is the American Seventh Fleet offshore? Why are there so many blue helmets around here?"  
  
"The United Nations is going on here," said Shigeru, walking towards her from the far end of the computer room. Behind him, three blue berets kept pace, briskly walking with their assault rifles shouldered. "I've reported the blue pattern signals to the Security Council, as ordered, and.."  
  
"But it's not even a confirmed signal!" protested Ritsuko as Shigeru finally reached her. "Doesn't matter, orders are orders." Shigeru said. "Besides, they have good reason not to entrust the matter to us, don't they, Ritsuko?"  
  
"Fine then." Ritsuko said, masking the irritation. "So," she sneered at one of the blue berets, "the Security Council fears us in addition to loathing us. Who's in charge here?" she asked aloud.  
  
"Rear-Admiral Starling from the USN, ma'am" replied one of the UN soldiers. "NERV is to stand by until authorized to act," said Shigeru.  
  
"Fools." Ritsuko spat the words out. "Only an EVA can defeat an Angel.." Shigeru shrugged. "Considering what we... you did behind their backs the last time, they have reason to distrust us," he said.  
  
Ritsuko saw no further point in continuing the conversation, and walked past Shigeru and the guards, to the large clear area of the building that functioned as a war room. A 3-D topographic map of Paris was projected in the middle of the room, the kind used when Angels attack.  
  
Fifteen red triangles encircled in white discs were moving in from the north.  
  
Ritsuko recognized the symbol for cruise missiles. "You're all mad," she said as she finally realized what the UN was planning.  
  
"Ritsuko, you will not interfere!" Shigeru warned from behind her.  
  
Shinji barely made it to school in time, huffing slightly from the effort of moving so fast. It had been a while since the last time he engaged in physical activity. Not able to do anything else, he quickly made his way to his classroom, hastily sitting down on the hard plastic chair. He consciously tried not to look at Hikari, if indeed she was his classmate.  
  
Hikari's eyes were on him, but he didn't realize it. She sat five rows behind him, looking at him with mixed emotions. She was angry at him for the Third Impact.  
  
Yet, she could see that it haunted him, she could feel it in the way he didn't even raise a hand in self-defence when she attacked him. How could Asuka still speak well of him when she knew that it was all because of him?  
  
Ritsuko stormed out of the room, and walked as fast as dignity would allow, out of the NERV command building, past the blue-helmeted UN guard, and out into the Geofront crater. It was mid-morning. NERV personnel were walking from one building to another, scurrying like nervous ants under the watchful eyes of the millitary. Eva Unit 02 stood silently nearby, powerless and still.Ritsuko wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and leaned back against the grey prefabricated concrete wall. A weary sigh escaped her lips.  
  
Shinji spent the recess period under a tree, eating gyoza, observing the other students. He felt tired, even bored. School just didn't feel so normal, so comfortably routine to him anymore, not after yesterday. He wondered if this is what Rei felt at school, an outsider, lost in the familiar, not knowing what was the right way to react. He reasoned that if Hikari could feel such hate for him, what about the other students? It would be their right to hate him, would it not? He didn't dare ask someone for fear it would be true.  
  
Yet, he wondered, would that not just be fooling himself? Like that accursed day when he thought he would find comfort in the death Rei.. Lilith offered? Shinji ate the last of the gyoza and walked alone to the basketball court. He used to sit here and watch Touji and Hanamichi and the others play the game. He wished Asuka was still in school. He didn't mind her short temper anymore, he just craved the familiar.  
  
"Shinji?" asked a small voice behind him. Shinji jumped back, reflexively covering his face with his arms protectively at the sound of Hikari's voice.  
  
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" he yelled, curling up into a ball.  
  
"Shinji, I'm sorry. I just came here to talk…" Hikari pleaded with him.  
  
"I didn't want it to happen. I never wanted it to happen to them!" Shinji cried out.  
  
"Shinji, please, let me talk to you," Hikari said again. There was no response from the Third Child.  
  
Finally, he whispered. "Please. Leave me alone. Leave me alone until I can figure it out."  
  
When the bell rang to mark the end of recess, Shinji remained as he was.  
  
Ritsuko and Asuka stood with Shigeru as the satellites and ground cameras tried to re-establish contact with Ground Zero. The monitors continued to show static while the MAGI terminals only showed the words "Establishing Connection" in large red letters. Asuka bit her lip, nervously fidgeting with the buttons on her red NERV jacket. Part of her hoped for the justification of her existence, while another part of her wanted to see fools pay for their fear. Shigeru stood calmly, his hands in his pockets, his eyes never wavering away from the computer screens.  
  
"So much like Ikari, so quickly," thought Ritsuko about the serious young man that not so long ago, was just another console jockey in the War Room.  
  
The MAGI terminals screamed "CONNECTION ESTABLISHED" and a wireframe representation of the area was immediately generated for all to see.  
  
As expected, downtown Paris was no more. Smoking craters and rubble replaced a city.  
  
There was something else the MAGI registered, moving through the rubble. The MAGI screens flashed a warning, just as the visual data from the satellites came in.  
  
"Blue pattern confirmed! It's an Angel!" shouted someone.  
  
The warning was unnecessary, because the thing was there for all to see. It was humanlike, clad in black titanium alloy plating from head to toe, with unnaturally elongated arms and it walked westward with an apelike gait.  
  
"Lieber Gott," was all that Asuka could say.  
  
"Evangelion Unit Three," Shigeru said, almost breathless with surprise.  
  
"The Thirteenth Angel," Ritsuko said, correcting him. She turned towards one of the UN soldiers. "Your Admiral Starling has some things he should personally explain to us."  
  
School finished early, to allow the students and their families time to evacuate. There was no fooling anyone. The Thirteenth Angel was heading to the ruins of Tokyo 03, humanity was fatalistically certain of that. Shinji was immediately whisked away by his security detail. He was put in a NERV car, unprotesting, and driven straight to the Geofront crater.  
  
"There's no running away," he mumbled silently to himself.  
  
"You're quite young. Not a day over thirty, right?" sneered Ritsuko.  
  
"Doctor, I hope my youth doesn't disturb you," replied the admiral, flashing her a pearly white smile from across the table. "And you're quite mistaken. I'm thirty-two years old. Third Impact makes for rapid promotion through the ranks." He finished, leaning back in his chair, his eyes reflective and blank, meeting Ritsuko's own.  
  
"Ritsuko, you will not antagonize him, is that understood?" Shigeru whispered harshly in her ear.  
  
"Very well, Commander," Ritsuko replied in her iciest tones. "On to business, then. The Thirteenth Angel. Eva unit 03. You bastards tried to rebuild it, didn't you?"  
  
Shigeru stared daggers at her, while Admiral Starling leant forward earnestly in his chair, his reassuring smile rapidly acquiring a plastic appearance.  
  
"I expressly wrote that the remains of Eva unit 03 must be disintegrated at the CERN particle accelerator, but the UN had other plans, didn't it? You never trusted us even back then!" she snapped, pointing a long accusing finger right at Starling.  
  
"Every time you try to start up that infested Eva, a blue pattern shows up on the MAGI and you shut it off hoping we don't notice. When you finally realize that thing was beyond human control, you nuked it all!!" she accused him, her voice forceful, angry yet controlled.  
  
"Ritsuko! That's enough!" Shigeru shouted at her.  
  
"And I'm the one with a suspended sentence for genocide!" she shouted, colour appearing on her normally pallid cheeks.  
  
"I apologize for her unseemly behaviour, sir," Shigeru said to Starling, trying to defuse the situation.  
  
"Not to worry, commander. The good doctor is merely sharing her theory with us," Starling said. He stared up at Ritsuko's long finger that was pointed at him. "As for your sudden concern for human lives, let me assure you that the French took all measures to evacuate the city. In fact, those missiles were launched off one of their own subs in the North Sea. Now, regarding our current problem, it's painfully obvious. That freakish blue pattern you all saw earlier must have been a Sea of Dirac, left over from the Third Impact.The combination of a Dirac Sea effect and multiple N2 detonations must have opened a time portal that summoned Unit 03 from the past." Starling's smile continued as Ritsuko could only roll her eyes towards the heavens and groan in frustration.  
  
There was a knock on the door.  
  
"Ah, it's a bit earlier than expected. Your security people really work fast," Admiral Starling said, getting up from his chair and opening the door himself.  
  
Two NERV bodyguards promptly saluted. The Third Child stood between them, shuffling his feet nervously and looking at the floor.  
  
It almost drove Ritsuko into a murderous rage. "You monsters," she snarled at Shigeru and Starling. "Haven't you done enough to him?" Starling thoughtfully scratched his chin. "We have to play it safe. You understand."  
  
"So they found a use for me again after all," Shinji thought to himself, dreading what must now come to pass. 


	3. A3I: Frustration

On the shores of the Atlantic coast, a gigantic, humanoid, black figure finally stopped. Its pursuers, the tanks and VTOL aircraft that NATO sent out In vain to stop its relentless westwards march, kept their respectul distance. The black monstrosity roared, as it arched its back at an inhuman angle, its arms, almost as long as its entire body, raised, pointing to the sky in an all-too-human gesture of triumph.  
  
Without casting so much as a glance back at its pathetic pursuers, it crouched, focusing its strength into its knees, then it sprang forward, leaping into the air above the Atlantic ocean, clearing the partially submerged buildings of what was once the city Le Havre. At the very apex of its leap, it sprouted gigantic black wings from its back that bore it aloft, smoothly gliding over the ocean.  
  
"Thank god, it's gone," said an anonymous tank commander. "It's NERV's problem now."  
  
NEON  
  
GENESIS  
  
EVANGELION  
  
A3I: Waiting.  
  
"Wings. Eva Unit 03 was never designed with wings," said Ritsuko Akagi, chief scientist of the United Nations agency, NERV.  
  
"It's heading westwards. Headed here, no doubt;" commented Shigeru Aoba, once a mere Lieutenant in NERV, but now, the commander of the agency, tasked once more with protecting mankind from the menace of the creatures that men call Angels.  
  
"There's no way it could have grown them by itself," Ritsuko muttered to no one and every one in particular. "Someone must have grafted them on."  
  
A man dressed in the white uniform of the US Navy cleared his throat, attracting their attention.  
  
"Well, it's obviously heading here. It's instinctively seeking anything resembling its own kind," said Rear Admiral Starling, stating the obvious. "So, Dr. Akagi, it looks like you told the truth during your trial after all."  
  
A man wearing the beige uniform of NERV walked up to the three of them, and saluted. Shigeru and Starling returned the salute, while Ritsuko merely glanced sideways at him, arms crossed across her chest. The nameless console jockey handed a printout to Shigeru, and left, but not before saluting them again. There were words exchanged, which Ritsuko paid no heed to, until both men returned their attention to her.  
  
"48 hours before that thing reaches here, right?" she asked knowingly, arms still folded across her chest.  
  
"No. It's moving faster than expected," replied Shigeru. "The MAGI say 24 to 36 hours, depending on whether we can slow it down."  
  
"Or choose to slow it down," continued Starling.  
  
"Choose to?" Shigeru asked, turning his head to the American. "Explain, please," asked, narrowing his eyes a little.  
  
"I am going to recommend to the President that we not attack the Angel if and when it crosses United States airspace. The Angel isn't interested in attacking conventional resistance," replied Starling, the everpresent plastic smile slowly disappearing.  
  
"That's wishful thinking," Ritsuko snarled. "You know it's coming here. You know it will clear out anything in its way, at the very least… "  
  
"I'm sure you'll beat it," finished Admiral Starling. "I will contact the Security Council to authorize your actions when I return to my ship. Good luck," he said, as he turned around to leave. Shigeru raised his arm; his hand cocked in a salute, as the admiral's back rapidly receded.  
  
"Go to yellow alert!" Shigeru bellowed out the order.  
  
Shinji sat on the chair in the Commander's office, alone, his eyes fixed on the individual patterns on the carpet. It didn't feel fair, not at all. He had told Shigeru and Ritsuko that he was never again getting within sight of an Eva, let alone pilot one again, and now, here he was, back at NERV against his will.  
  
Compared to the huge empty space that was his father's office, Shigeru's office was tiny, yet the painful similarities were there. The desk was meticulously kept neat and tidy, there were security men outside, and it felt very, very cold.  
  
The door slid open, and Shinji could hear Shigeru's boots on the carpeting, the soft thuds getting louder as he approached. Shigeru made his way to his chair, and cleared his throat to get Shinji's attention. Shinji raised his head, his face an unreadable mask.  
  
"Shinji, I haven't seen you in months! How have you been doing?" Shigeru asked, carefully trying to upset the Third Child. Ritsuko had warned him of the boy's fragile emotional state, and she had been very particular about not cracking his fragile mind.  
  
"Now, Shinji, you do know why we called you here," Shigeru said, carefully studying the boy's face for any adverse emotional reactions.  
  
"NERV isn't asking you to pilot." Shigeru continued.  
  
"So, that's good," was Shinji's quiet, noncomittal response.  
  
"All we ask from you is to stay with us here at NERV, until the Angel is defeated. You're an important person to us," Shigeru said, gently, trying to get to his point.  
  
"You want me to cover for Asuka, isn't it?" Shinji asked softly. Shigeru was taken aback, but he quickly recovered, nodding in response to the question.  
  
"Did Ritsuko tell you that beforehand, Shinji?" Shigeru asked again.  
  
"No." Shinji replied. "It's my only use to NERV," he continued.  
  
"Shinji, I hope it doesn't have to come to that," Shigeru said. "But if anything were to happen to Asuka, you're the only pilot we have left."  
  
"I see," Shinij replied.  
  
"We can't afford to lose," Shigeru continued.  
  
Shinji merely nodded.  
  
"What were you thinking? Why didn't you say something?!" Asuka practically shrieked at Ritsuko in the ladies' room, having practically stalked her for much of the morning, finally cornering her in the deserted ladies' room. She saw Shinji and his security detail being brought to meet the Commander, and she knew that there was only one damnable reason for that to happen.  
  
"I wasn't told. The UN wanted it that way, I suppose," Ritsuko said unhappily. "They don't realize that if he gets into an entry plug, it's as good as over."  
  
"You could have told them that!" Asuka snapped. "Now that baka might actually pilot! In his state!" Asuka turned off the running water, shaking her hands free of the clinging drops of water, echoes of her last few words ringing throughout the room.  
  
"My word carries little weight, either with the UN, or with Aoba. But I don't think that will come to pass. They won't use him when they still have you, Asuka." Ritsuko replied as calmly as she could, trying to quiet the doubting voices in her mind. "I could run a sync test on Shinji. It's likely that he'll fail," Ritsuko said, a faint trace of hope registering in her voice.  
  
Asuka reached for the paper towel, drying her hands. She checked her beige NERV uniform before zipping up her red jacket all the way to her neck. "I think they've already thought of that," she said to Ritsuko, doubt evident in the way her eyes were squinting at her reflection in the mirror.  
  
"In that case, there's only one reason they want him." Ritsuko said. She willed herself to use the words. "The Evangelion by itself is too weak to fight the bindings and programming. That's why it needs to synchronize with a living being."  
  
Asuka's eyes narrowed. There was nothing here that she didn't already know, but she recognized the look in the Chief Scientist's eyes. There was some deep secret that was about to come out.  
  
"The Eva doesn't really need to obey the pilot." Ritsuko said, with a long sigh of relief at the end. "Pilots are a safety characteristic. We forced the Eva to do only the things its pilot wants it to. But when the pilot tells the Eva to do whatever it wants," "  
  
"What?" Asuka asked, startled and confused.  
  
"Remember the dummy plug system we used to beat the Thirteenth Angel thei first time?" Ritsuko asked.  
  
Asuka nodded as she remembered the basic concepts of NERV's Dummy Plug System, while trying not to recall Shinji's frenzied screams over the communications system when his Eva crushed Touji's entry plug. Then the dark epiphany hit her. Asuka grabbed Ritsuko's arm so hard that Ritsuko's fingers tingled.  
  
"Shinji in a dummy plug?!" she said in desperation as her fingers clenched ever tighter.  
  
"Considering the state he's in, that would be the only way they can make him function in combat." Ritsuko answered in grim certainty.  
  
"How could Shigeru even let himself think about it? What kind of monster has he become?" Asuka asked again.  
  
"I don't think he knows, Asuka," Ritsuko said. "We kept the technology under lock and key in the Dogma. However, that doesn't mean Starling hasn't found out that it's possible."  
  
"Ritsuko, were you even human before the Impact?" Asuka asked bitterly as she released Ritsuko's arm. Ritsuko kept silent.  
  
Asuka brushed a lock of red hair away from her blue eyes. She looked at Ritsuko, hands on her hips, her jaw set. "Well, it looks like I'll just have to win, then."  
  
Ritsuko nodded dumbly, but before she could open her mouth to speak, Asuka spoke again.  
  
"But I'm not going to do it for you, or for NERV, or because Admiral Starling has a mandate from the UN. I'm doing it so that baka Shinji doesn't get turned into a drooling vegetable. He's practically a vegetable now anyway. "  
  
There was a pause.  
  
"I'll pray for your success, Asuka," Ritsuko said, with more determination that usual, eliciting a loud, unexpected bark of a laugh from Asuka.  
  
"You're an atheist, remember?" Asuka asked, before she made her way out of the ladies room, not bothering to make way for the young woman who was coming in. Ritsuko watched her leave, and ran the tap again, collecting the cold water in her hands before splashing it carelessly over her face. She needs to feel alert, badly.  
  
In the commander's office, Shigeru offered Shinji a cup of green tea.  
  
"Shinji, I know how horrible it had been for you. I was there, remember? I heard Asuka screaming for you. I saw everything fall apart, and all I could do was give Fuyutsuki status reports, hoping he could do something, but I never knew that the end of man was his one wish."  
  
Shinji nodded dumbly.  
  
"But this time, this time, Shinji, we have a fighting chance. This time, your father and his mad plans aren't there to sabotage us."  
  
Shinji's face darkened at the mention of the most hated person ever to exist.  
  
"Ah, I'm sorry, Shinji. I realize it was wrong to mention him."  
  
Shinji opened his mouth to speak. "Aoba-san," he said softly, so softly that Shigeru had to lean forward to hear him.  
  
"Aoba-san, if there was no choice, I'll do all I can."  
  
"Thank you Shinji," Shigeru said, genuinely relieved to hear the words. Had Shinji said no, and stuck to his guns, Starling would have been deeply unhappy.  
  
"We'll set up a ready room for you in the bunker complex," Shigeru said as he got up. "Come on, Shinji, I'll walk you there myself," he said, gently taking Shinji's hand, tugging him ever so delicately to stand up.  
  
On the bridge of an American aircraft carrier, several miles offshore from the Japanese coast, Rear-Admiral Starling was greeted with salutes. He responded in kind, before turning to the ship's captain.  
  
"Any word from the President? Or the UN?" he asked, unhurried. He knew already what the message was going to be, but he was interested in finding out how long it would take for those politicians to realize it.  
  
He was handed a sealed envelope. Tearing it open, his eyes carelessly scanned the ciphered message, mentally decoding the message that only he was authorized to read.  
  
He grunted approvingly. "Ahead full, Captain," he said, immediately triggering chain of commands that moved the mighty ship's massive turbines, moving the aircraft carrier, and its attendant ships, further away from Japan.  
  
Shinji sat alone on the bench in the ready room. There was a locker; there was food and drink on a table should he so wish to eat. His plugsuit, the exact plugsuit he wore into battle against the Seventeenth Angel, hung neatly in the locker. He slowly hummed a tune, trying to drown out the incessant thoughts in his head with the soothing tunes of the Ode to Joy. Kaworu always did like that song.  
  
The door opened, and a woman stepped in, her silhouette in the doorway giving her identity away.  
  
"Hello, Asuka," Shinji said reflexively, without feeling relief or anxiety.  
  
"He's in here, all right," Asuka said to someone standing next to her. "Come on in," she invited the mystery person.  
  
Hikari poked her head in nervously. "Hello, Shinji," she stammered.  
  
Shinji slumped his chair, the feeling of despair growing each second. Here was another thing he could never run away from.  
  
"Asuka, are you sure this is a good idea?" Hikari asked, suddenly unsure of her friend's plan.  
  
"Just come in," Asuka said, reassuringly. She was sure that this was the best way. She didn't want to give Shinji the chance to run away from this. It took some bluster and a few unpalatable German phrases to get Hikari into the Geofront crater, no thanks to the yellow alert, but Asuka knew the opportunity was too rare to miss.  
  
Asuka pulled up a folding metal chair that was leaning against the wall, set it up and offered it to Hikari, who gave her a questioning look, but took the seat regardless.  
  
"The Third Impact was not your fault," Hikari said. "I was wrong," she continued, trying to establish eye contact with Shinji. "I don't remember what it was like, Shinji, but you do. You must have tried to stop it."  
  
While Hikari spoke, Asuka walked over and closed the door. This matter was between Children, and she just wanted to shut out the problems of the outside world for a little while. .  
  
Even though the outside world was looking in.  
  
It wasn't Ritsuko's idea to eavesdrop. She just wanted to check on Shinji, and told one of the security people to turn the security camera in his ready room on. She raised an eyebrow, noticing Asuka and Hikari talking with the boy.  
  
She ordered the audio feed opened as well. The sound was tinny, and she had to concentrate to make out the words, especially Shinji's words, because he spoke them in an unsure whisper.  
  
Ritsuko smiled to herself, noting the details of the conversation between Shinji, Asuka and Hikari, silently analyzing each of Shinji's spoken responses, looking for signs of a catharsis. She felt a little guilt intruding on a private moment, but it nothing she wasn't used to. It was just another one of those secrets she had to keep.  
  
Through strength of will alone, Ritsuko glanced at the clock, realizing that she had spent two hours observing Shinji's makeshift therapy session. She had to tear herself away from the monitor, realizing that it was about time Shigeru had his lunch.  
  
Ritsuko walked calmly out of the security building, squinting a little in the bright afternoon sun. She walked briskly, not wanting to spend too much time in the sun, all the way to NERV's command building, barely noticing the blue helmet guarding the main door.  
  
As Ritsuko walked past the door to the War Room, relentlessly making her way to the staff cafeteria, she thought about what she saw earlier. Asuka's effort was noble, well intended, but too direct.  
  
Helping Shinji required subtlety, but dealing with that grouch Aoba required downright sneakiness, Ritsuko thought, smiling to herself bemusedly at the idea.  
  
She neared the door to the cafeteria, and then stopped. She took a deep breath, making sure that she had her usual serious expression on, and gently pushed the door open. There, sitting alone at a small table, was Shigeru Aoba, Acting Commander of NERV, with his boxed lunch. He was such a creature of habit, Ritsuko noted, that he would still eat here like the rest of the staff, instead of ordering food be brought into his office.  
  
"Am I interrupting, commander?" Ritsuko asked as she made her way to his table in the cafetaria. Shigeru put down his chopsticks, his enjoyment of the boxed lunch now gone forever.  
  
"What is this about?" Shigeru asked, his eyes looking up from his meal at her.  
  
Ritsuko sat down opposite Shigeru, and looked around to make sure they were the only two people left. It was way past lunch hour, and the next meal break wasn't going to be for another two hours, so the place was quite deserted.  
  
"Commander,the Angel seems to be heading towards the Newfoundland shoreline," Ritsuko said, cautiously trying to lull him with other matters first.  
  
Shigeru's eyebrow shot up quizzicaly. "Canada's east coast, sir," Ritsuko gently reminded.  
  
"Oh," Shigeru replied. "Still quite a distance from us. Commander, but I just wondered if you noticed something about the Angel," Ritsuko said.  
  
Ritsuko could tell from his expression that he had no idea.  
  
"Commander, don't you think there's something strange about its flight path?" Ritsuko asked, a little bit of smugness in her voice.  
  
"No," Shigeru replied. "What are you trying to tell me?"  
  
"Bear with me, sir, but as far as we know, Angels don't think like we do, correct?"  
  
"According to you," Shigeru replied, recalling the many scientific briefings Ritsuko gave him when he was just another NERV employee. To think about it, she had a point. Even the last one, that boy, didn't really act like a normal human being. "So what does this have to do with the Angel on its way here?"  
  
"It's flying westwards, across North America. The shortest line from Europe to here is northwards, across the Arctic. Commander, don't you see? It's taking the long way around because someone is telling it to fly west. It's being piloted sir, it's the only logical explanation."  
  
"That's terrible," Shigeru mumbled. He remembered what happened to Toji, the Fourth Child, in the aftermath of the first battle against the Thirteenth.  
  
"Wait, if there's a pilot, and he's in control of the Eva," Shigeru started to say something, but Ritsuko was not going to let him finish that thought. "Or maybe, commander, the Eva is in control of the pilot. We can't discount that possibility." Shigeru looked down, his right hand clenching into a fist, slowly punching the tabletop in a controlled release of frustration.  
  
"Asuka will fight, commander. But Shinji… I recommend we pull him out of here." Ritsuko said, peering out from her glasses at the Commander.  
  
"No. We can't afford to lose. We have to stop the Angel no matter what." Shigeru was sure enough of that, at least.  
  
"Commander, may I remind you what Shinji's reaction was after he found out what his Eva did to the Fourth Child?"  
  
Shigeru paused, remembering. Shinji went ballistic at the sight of Toji's broken and battered body being extracted from the entry plug of Eva 03, and afterwards threatened to use Eva 01 to destroy the Geofront.  
  
"Commander, we can't risk using Shinji. Not in his mental state." Ritsuko continued. " I understand this is a UN-mandated order, but you have got to tell them that Shinji is of no use as a weapon of last resort."  
  
Shigeru bit his lip, feeling frustrated.  
  
"You seem to be rather concerned about Shinji after your trial," Shigeru commented.  
  
"This is about all of us, commander, not just the Third Child," Ritsuko said, trying not to let herself take the bait.  
  
"I'll talk to Starling about it. Now if you'll excuse me," Shigeru said as he slowly rose up from the chair, "I am feeling rather nauseous. Perhaps there was something unpleasant around here," he said as he started to make his way, unhurriedly, to the exit.  
  
Inwardly, Ritsuko let out a cry of triumph. She knew it; Shigeru Aoba was nothing like Gendo. She could find his buttons; she could make herself indispensable to him no matter what he felt about her. Most importantly, she could keep Shinji safe, and if she kept Shinji safe, she could keep herself safe as well.  
  
"Did you think we got through to him?" Hikari asked, as Asuka escorted her out of the building.  
  
"For that baka's sake, I hope we did," Asuka said.  
  
"I just hope we didn't damage him any more," Hikari said, slightly worried now. Shinji's numbness to his surroundings disturbed her. He reminded her too much of what she herself had become since she came back to life. He reminded her of her own apathy, her bags of unremoved garbage, the plates that stacked up in her sink, the dirty laundry she wore again and again. She had become what Asuka had been once, after she fought that space Angel and lost.  
  
"Cover your eyes, the sunlight can really get you after so much time in here," Asuka warned, her hand grabbing the thick steel lever that opened the door to the NERV bunker complex. She gave a sharp tug and electro- mechanical servos and gears did the rest, opening the bombproof door.  
  
Asuka was right, the sunlight was rather painful after spending so much time in the relative darkness of the bunker. Hikari covered her eyes with her hands, waiting for her eyes to adjust again. Asuka stepped out, gently putting a hand on Hikari's back, guiding her friend out the door before it automatically closed in thirty seconds.  
  
The pair walked along a concrete path under the hot afternoon sun, occasionally bumping into other NERV staff, and sometimes, walking right past blue-helmeted UN soldiers. Hikari noticed someone, craning her neck to make sure just who it was.  
  
"Hey, Asuka, isn't that Ritsuko?" Hikari asked.  
  
Asuka turned her head in the direction Hikari was pointing to. It was the mad scientist, no doubt about it.  
  
"Yeah, it's Ritsuko. Now there's someone you can kick without feeling guilty," Asuka said, sneering.  
  
"You don't sound too fond of her." Hikari questioned. It was strange, after all, she did have dinner with Ritsuko and Shinji almost every night.  
  
"We look after someone in common, that's all." Asuka said. "Come on, I'll walk you to the crater's edge," Asuka said, trying to avoid the subject.  
  
"Oh, okay, I just saw something weird about Ritsuko, that's all," Hikari said.  
  
"What?" Asuka asked.  
  
"She was smiling," Hikari said.  
  
  
  
The plastic smile on Admiral Starling's face looked increasingly forced.  
  
"Well, Commander, I do understand that this is your agency, but you're responsible for more than just your people, you simply have to remember that," he said over the video conferencing screen in Shigeru's office.  
  
"Well, Admiral, my Chief Scientist has just assured me that any attempt to use the Third Child in combat may prove, ah, counter-productive, at least, not in the current mental state he's in," Shigeru said, suddenly uncomfortable with what he just said.  
  
"Commander, I must remind you, there's an Angel on its way to where you are. " Starling said again.  
  
"Yes, I am aware," Shigeru said. "I understand why you had to withdraw your naval forces away from here, too."  
  
"No hard feelings, Commander, but you do realize that conventional resistance isn't very effective against Angels. That's why we had to be sure. We just can't afford to leave anything to chance. I still feel the Third Child could help NERV defeat the Angel"  
  
"Yes, Admiral. We're aware of that. Don't worry about it too much, NERV has always found a way. I'm confident the Second Child will defeat the Angel," Shigeru said, his sweating palms hidden in his pockets, out of sight.  
  
"Very well, commander. I hope the Security Council concurs with your decision. Good luck," Starling said, before he cut off the link.  
  
Shigeru leaned back in his chair. Damnable job, he silently swore to himself. He was doing a good job making sure NERV was battle-ready again, but there were all these competing factors interfering with his duties. He briefly wondered how his predecessor managed, before the cold chill reminded him there were things that were better left dead in the Third Impact. The UN was very insistent he uses Shinji in combat, but Shinji wasn't keen on piloting, and the boy was practically on the borderline of a nervous breakdown. Then there was Ritsuko factor. She still had the cold, aloof demeanour he remembered, but she actually seems to care, genuinely care, about the Children. He felt in his heart she was up to something, but there was never any positive indication.  
  
He thought again about the situation. Why would the UN be so insistent about the Third Child?  
  
  
  
Asuka and Hikari stood on the edge of the Geofront crater, looking at the cluster of buildings that housed NERV, and at the inert form of Asuka's Evangelion that seemingly shimmered in the late afternoon sun.  
  
"What a view," Hikari commented.  
  
"Hmm, yes, quite. You can look Angel-girl right in the face from here, you can even see the red in her eyes," Asuka said.  
  
"No, not Ayanami. I'm talking about NERV. You can see everything from here," Hikari said.  
  
"Take a good look," Asuka said, smiling. "When I'm done with that Angel tomorrow, the view might not be so pretty."  
  
Hikari hummed her acquiescence. "I'm not going to evacuate to Toyohara. I'm not running. I'm going to stay here and root for you to win," she said, determination in her voice.  
  
Asuka was stunned, but Hikari didn't give her the chance to object.  
  
"If you lose, it's the end of us all anyway, and I want it to be as quick and painless as possible, just like the Third Impact."  
  
"I won't lose," Asuka said. "Not to that thing, not to anyone, ever again."  
  
She looked across the lip of the crater, right into the gigantic sightless eyes of the dead Rei that loomed over the horizon.  
  
"Especially you," Asuka thought ruefully, staring at Rei's giant dismembered head.  
  
Despite himself, Shinji was getting quite bored, sitting in the ready room, alternately looking at his plugsuit and then the ceiling. It had been hours since Shigeru told him to wait here until further notice. Asuka and Hikari had left, and he couldn't be sure whether to be glad they're gone, or bang his fists on the door and yell at the top of his lungs until they come back.  
  
He now wondered if he could open the door to the room. Perhaps they had locked him in here? But if Asuka and Hikari could come in, he saw no reason why he couldn't come out. He walked to the door, and tentatively reached out his hand to open it.  
  
The door opened of its own accord, startling Shinji, who jumped backwards instinctively.  
  
"Shinji-kun, is my appearance so hideous it scares young men away?" Ritsuko asked, still wearing a faint trace of the smile that came after she spoke with Shigeru.  
  
"Um, ah… Ritsuko-san, I'm sorry, I didn't…" Shinji tried to mouth out something that was acceptable to her, but his overloaded mind simply could not come up with any, leaving his mouth to do the thinking, supplying various sounds and half-formed words.  
  
"I'm joking, Shinji-kun," said Ritsuko again, her face looking rather strange with that expression on her face. Was that her version of a smile? Shinji wondered. He never really saw Ritsuko smile before.  
  
"Come on out," Ritsuko said. "NERV has decided not to risk you in combat. We're going home for the night, then in the morning your security detail will take you to Matsushiro until Asuka beats the Angel. Now, is that all right, Shinji?" she asked, the words coming out faster than his confused mind could decipher. She was saying that he didn't have to pilot, was that it?  
  
"Uh. Yes," Shinji answered, the only reaction he could muster.  
  
"Good, now let's go home," Ritsuko said gently.  
  
The sun was setting, and the MAGI had come out with a new estimated time of arrival for the resurrected Thirteenth Angel, but neither Ritsuko nor Asuka cared. They were busy with dinner.  
  
"Think the three of us can actually finish a whole chicken?" Asuka asked, uncertain, as Ritsuko shoved a raw bird into the microwave.  
  
"Hmm. I haven't seen Pen-Pen around," Ritsuko commented. "I certainly hope that was chicken…" her voice trailed off.  
  
"Not funny," Asuka said, returning to her task of mashing the potatoes.  
  
"Has Shinji come here yet?" asked Ritsuko.  
  
"No. I could hear him play his cello on my way here," Asuka said.  
  
"Good," Ritsuko said. "That gives us some time," she said as she set the bird to roast.  
  
Asuka looked up at her quizzicaly.  
  
"We need to talk about Shinji-kun," Ritsuko said. Not waiting for Asuka's response, Ritsuko ran the tap, washing her hands clean. "They won't give up. I took him out of danger today, but they won't rest until they make him part of the Dummy Plug System."  
  
Asuka almost dropped her wooden spoon. That horrible thought from earlier in the afternoon returned to cloud her mind.  
  
"But… why him? Why not me?" Asuka asked.  
  
"Asuka, you have to understand. The core of the Dummy Plug System…"  
  
"Wondergirl," Asuka said, remembering Ritsuko's testimony during her trial.  
  
"No. Not just Rei." Ritsuko said. "Truth is, anyone would do, but Shinji was perfect. Eva 01 would never have rejected a Shinji dummy plug,"  
  
Asuka's blue eyes narrowed in anger, and she stepped up to Ritsuko, grabbing her arm and pulling the older woman closer, without resistance.  
  
"Stop talking in riddles, damn you!" Asuka shouted. "I'm not Misato, and I'm not Shinji, so stop thinking that I won't understand or I can't handle it! You're going to tell me just what the hell that baka has to do with the Dummy Plugs, or so help me…"  
  
A knock on the door interrupted her anger.  
  
"Shinji!" Ritsuko gasped.  
  
The doorknob twisted, and Shinji poked his head in nervously.  
  
"Is.. is everything all right?" Shinji asked slowly, before a rather loud squawk from under him drew his attention. Pen-Pen stood at his feet, having come out from its unknown hiding place, jumping up and down as if glad to see Shinji.  
  
"No, Shinji, nothing's right!" Asuka yelled at him, causing him to shirk back in the doorway. "Ritsuko practically murdered that chicken in the oven! I told her, just rub salt and pepper on it and roast it, but nooo, she had to go fusion on us and rub wasabe on it too! Have you ever had any wasabe-flavoured roast chicken?"  
  
"Uh, no. No!" Shinji said, shaking his head in fear of Asuka's wrath.  
  
"Well, you're about to!" Asuka shrieked at him. "We're going to feed you wasabe flavoured roast chicken, and if you don't explode or choke, we're making you eat the whole damn bird!"  
  
Shinji's eyes were downcast, his shoulders slumped slightly at the verbal lashing Asuka gave him for no reason whatsoever. Then again, it wasn't anything he wasn't used to. He had been learning to ignore her diatribes, but she seemed so nice, so caring, just a few hours ago, and now, she was abusing him yet again. He did the only thing he could do, and that was to slink away, shuffling his feet towards the dining table.  
  
Ritsuko laid a hand on Asuka's shoulder, slowly leaning over so she could whisper her thanks in Asuka's ear.  
  
"This isn't over," was Asuka's harshly whispered reply. 


	4. A3I:Aggression

In the skies over the western coast of the United States, a humanoid figure soared unopposed. It was coated head to toe in seventeen thousand separate pieces of black armored binding that protected it from harm, but it did not need them.  
  
Ever since it was awakened, nothing had been able to stop it, harm it, or even slow it down. It rode the air currents relentlessly, spurred forward under its own power. The Children of Lilith stood aside wherever it approached, scattering from its path long before its shadow hit the ground below it.  
  
It made its way past the coastline, looking down on the ocean once again. It had crossed the Atlantic, North America and now, only the Pacific stood between it and its goal.  
  
Only a teenage girl, the ghostly soul of her dead mother and a beast could stop it.  
  
NEON  
  
GENESIS  
  
EVANGELION  
  
A3I: Aggression.  
  
Asuka patted her full stomach as she slumped onto a beanbag in Ritsuko's apartment. Shinji sat nearby watching re-runs of Takeshi's Castle. Ritsuko was in the kitchen, cleaning up after their meal. Pen-Pen was in the kitchen as well, begging Ritsuko for the fish sticks in the freezer.  
  
Shigeru Aoba sat in the Commander's office in the hollowed out crater that housed NERV, watching thermographic representations of the three of them on his screen. He didn't feel comfortable spying on people like this, but he felt he had to keep an eye on the Second Child. Ritsuko surely knew better than to take the only Eva pilot in the world home when there was an Angel approaching from the east. He made a mental note to put his foot down the next time, and mean it. He absently grabbed a half-full mug of warm coffee and took a quick sip, before returning his attention to the screen.  
  
"Shinji, have you packed?" asked Ritsuko's voice, coming in from the kitchen.  
  
"Yes," Shinji replied listlessly, his eyes trying hard to focus on the TV show. He had packed away fresh clothes, his SDAT player and the things that meant the most to him. He was ready to be taken away to Hakone.  
  
"Make sure you pack a raincoat," Ritsuko continued. "Weather forecast says it might rain over Matsushiro." There was the clinking of glass and Pen- Pen's squawking from the kitchen, but Ritsuko said nothing further.  
  
"Matsushiro? He's going to Hakone!" Asuka protested rather loudly.  
  
"Hakone's too close, Shinji. Matsuhiro's much safer," Ritsuko said, her tone of voice conveying the finality of her decision. Asuka didn't see Shinji trying to protest, and she had no intention of fighting his battles for him, so she kept quiet.  
  
No other words were said from that point until Shinji got up to leave, which was the exact moment that Ritsuko got out of the kitchen. As Shinji wrapped his hands around the doorknob, Ritsuko spoke.  
  
"Shinji, you know the two of us can't see you off tomorrow morning, so I think this is goodbye for now, and take care of yourself," Ritsuko said.  
  
Shinji swallowed hard and nodded.  
  
"Oh don't be such a drama queen!" interjected Asuka. "You sound like we're going off to die tomorrow!" Asuka turned her head in Shinji's direction. "If you think you're getting rid of us that easy, you're mistaken!"  
  
"Yes," Shinji replied slowly. "That's good to hear," he said, as a weak smile crept up his lips. He opened the door and stepped out, taking care to close the door again as gently as he can.  
  
The two women waited until they could no longer hear his footsteps.  
  
Asuka spoke first in a hissing whisper through curled lips. "You're going to talk about it NOW, Ritsuko. And don't think I'm stupid enough to be fooled easily."  
  
Ritsuko nodded her assent. "Stomach cramps?" Ritsuko asked rather loudly, catching Asuka off guard. "No, wait, no need to rush there yet, let me get you some antacid from the medicine cabinet!" She then rushed to the bedroom, leaving in her wake a thoroughly confused Asuka.  
  
Ritsuko returned just as Asuka got up to follow her into the bedroom. In her hand was a computer disk, which she wordlessly pressed into Asuka's open palm, her cold fingers briefly making contact with the skin of her hand, causing Asuka's hand to reflexively clutch the disk. Asuka looked at Ritsuko, her sense of confusion now heightened.  
  
"Go ahead, take it," Ritsuko said in a matter-of-fact manner, as if it really was antacid tablets that she placed in her hand.  
  
"What the ." Asuka asked, dumbfounded. Why did Ritsuko act strange all of a sudden?  
  
"Shigeru's watching" Ritsuko whispered, as silently as she could. "My handheld computer lets me know when he turns on his scanners. The fool should know better than to use my own equipment on me" she said scornfully.  
  
"I'm tired, I'm going to my apartment now," Asuka said, less than sure of what she was actually saying.  
  
"Go straight to bed, you have to fight an Angel tomorrow, " Ritsuko said, her hand gesturing in the direction of the disk in Asuka's hand. "Be sure to take your medicine," she said to Asuka before returning to the kitchen.  
  
Asuka shrugged, and opened the door to leave. As always, she had to pass by Shinji's door before she could make it to her own apartment upstairs. There was no sound of the cello playing from behind the door, merely silence.  
  
Asuka raised her hand to knock. She stopped herself just as her knuckles was about to make contact with the wood. Her hand trembled slightly as she fought with herself whether to go through with knocking on his door, or to walk away.  
  
The approaching Angel made up her mind for her. She slowly shuffled away, making her way up the stairs to her own apartment. She took the disk Ritsuko gave her, inserting it into her computer. Asuka snarled in frustration as her computer brought forth the data contained within the disk. It was about the Dummy Plugs all right, she was certain of it, but the data was almost entirely technical. She was no fool, and she was confident she could make sense of it, but it required time, and she had to set her priorities straight. She cursed Ritsuko before turning the computer off and heading to bed.  
  
The three of them slept under the glare of the red sky for what seemed like only a few minutes before NERV came calling. Shinji's security detail came first, knocking three times before unlocking the door and marching in, roughly shaking awake the Third Child and taking him away to a waiting car.  
  
For Ritsuko and Asuka, their wake-up call was slightly more dramatic. Their sleep was interrupted by the high pitched whine of a NERV helicopter. Both women recognized the sound, and were up in a flash, gathering the necessary personal effects and wordlessly making their way down the stairs. Simple niceties like showers or breakfasts would come later.  
  
A few hours later, as the sun rose above the eastern horizon, casting its light into the Geofront crater, Asuka sat in the entry plug of Eva 02, her eyes closed, her mind reaching into happy communion with the Eva, the last remaining link she had with her mother. The presence of her ghost in the machine comforted her, allowing her mind to slip into a state of relaxed preparedness. Asuka ignored the usual computer-generated readouts, and the endless technobablle that was coming from the war room. She was in her happy place, and she felt the warm comfort of needing to do only what mother told her.  
  
"That's the last of the procedures," Ritsuko said to Shigeru, who stood behind her, silently watching the live video feed from the innumerable cameras buried in the crater walls.  
  
"All right, then. Lower the buildings," Shigeru said. The order was repeated throughout the room, and with a rumble, the buildings that now housed NERV began to sink into the ground, much like the old Tokyo 03. Clouds of dust rose from the ground, reaching up to the chest of Eva 02. Asuka took no heed of the dust, merely digging in her Eva's heels into the dirt, trying to find a better footing.  
  
Ritsuko grabbed a nearby desk for support. The rumblings continued for a while, disrupting the holographic projections, which flickered madly. Then it stopped.  
  
"So that's what it's like, " Shigeru commented. The holographs came back on line, this time with a small blue dot rapidly approaching the yellow hole that represented the crater.  
  
"It's here. Red alert!" Shigeru bellowed. 


	5. A3I:Aggression II

The Thirteenth Angel had reached the end of its long journey, heading back towards its place of birth. The Children of Lilith had awaked it, and it had obeyed its unerring mission to return to what it had came from. It saw the oceans end ahead of it, as it began to glide down to the ground, slower than what it chould have done. Had it been human-like, like the Seventeeth, it would have registered surprise. For its progenitor was dead, pieces of it scattered over the Pacific, and the islands below. 

If it had free will, like the Seventeenth, it would have doubted. But it was the Thirteenth, and it knew only of its reason for existing. 

On the ground below, Acting Commander Shigeru Aoba nodded grimly to himself, before grabbing a microphone, slowly considering the impact of every word that he was going to say to Asuka in her Eva. 

"Good luck, Asuka. Let's show them all why we're here." 

NEON

GENESIS

EVANGELION

A3I: Agression II

"Target is 800 meters in the air, decreasing height at a rate of 10 meters a second," said someone who was monitoring the sensors. 

"I see. Fortunately they still seem mindless," Ritsuko said. How fortunate, she thought, that Angels knew nothing of strategy or planning.

"All right, it's here, can I kill it now?" asked Asuka's voice over the intercom, as her Eva pointed its palette rifle at the rapidly descending figure of the Angel. Her voice had a hint of a satisfied smirk in it, which nobody could verify, as the visual communications systems in the Eva had not yet been completely set up. 

"Wait. That new palette rifle probably won't penetrate Eva armor. Wait till it gets closer," Ritsuko said, her eyes locked on the visual signal of the black angel swooping down on the ground. She could see the face of the monster on the video displays at maximum zoom, its jaws gaping open in an insane leer, its unnaturally elongated arms, a design feature in the original Eva 03, now trailing eerily behind its body. 

"I have a clear shot," Asuka calmly said. 

"Wait," Ritsuko said. 

"Fire!" Shigeru ordered. 

Asuka let loose a long sustained burst with the giant rifle, which spewed out scores of armor-piercing rounds into the sky. The bullets relentlessly raced towards its destination, only to harmlessly shatter in the air in front of the Angel. 

"Damn AT Field.. break, damn you, break!" Shigeru bitterly willed forth death to the Angel above as Asuka ceased firing, giving time for her weapon to cool down, as she kept a close bead on the Angel. The Angel itself stopped its gentle descent, flapping its monstrous black wings in the morning sky, hiding in front of the sun. 

Asuka cursed in German, angry at the pathetic weapons she was stuck with. Ritsuko spared a sideways glance at Shigeru, who stood in front of the main tactical display, his eyes never taking a second off the video feed, ignoring the shouted status reports of the combat staff seated at their consoles. Ritsuko saw his clenched fist shake in front of his chest, and the tightness of his lips. He looked afraid in her eyes. 

"Asuka, fire again! " Shigeru shouted. The rifle should have cooled down enough for another burst. The AT field was strong, but it wasn't the strongest. He knew that a sustained pounding would at least weaken it. 

"No! Asuka! Don't!" Ritsuko shouted. Shigeru immediately turned his head to face her, his shoulder length hair swinging wildly from the speed of his action. His eyes narrowed in anger. The room fell silent, as one by one, the assorted techs and support personnel turned their heads to look at Ritsuko and Shigeru. For three seconds Shigeru merely glared at Ritsuko, who stared back with focus and intensity, her lips drawn tight into a narrow line. 

The Angel gracefully swooped down onto the crater floor, with a dull thud that everyone in the war room below its feet could feel. A small cloud of dust rose up to the Angel's knees, only to hit something that seemed to shimmer in the morning air. The dust fell back to the ground, as the Angel's mouth opened wide in what almost looked like a human sneer.

"Asuka, ignore the Chief Scientist's order. Fire," Shigeru hissed, still not taking his eyes off Ritsuko. 

Asuka pointed her Eva's rifle at the spot where the Angel had landed, almost fifty meters in front of her. The Angel merely looked in her direction, almost daring her to fire. Asuka pulled the trigger, but there was no Angel for her bullets to hit. It had leaped into the air, its long hands taking a swipe at Eva 02's head. 

Eva 02 jumped back slightly, its head escaping the swinging fist of the Angel. It had dropped the unwieldy palette rifle, and Asuka commanded her Eva to repeatedly step back, dodging various swipes and punches thrown by the Angel. 

"You can't beat me!!" Asuka shouted, as the Angel amazingly stopped attacking. It stood in front of her, it's unnaturally long arms just out of reach of Asuka's red Eva 02. 

"AT Fields neutralized," said someone. 

"Come on, Asuka." Shigeru whispered as silently as he could. 

Asuka pushed her Eva forward now, trying to capitalize on the opening as Eva 02 made a running shoulder block, catching the Angel square in the chest area, knocking it a few steps backwards. As Asuka tried to bring the Progressive Knife into play, thrusting it at the Angel's chest, the posessed Evangelion lunged forward, its mouth wide open at an inhuman aperture, rushing forward to try and bite Eva 02's neck. 

"Scheisse!" Asuka shouted as she hurriedly made her Eva dodge the surprise attack. Drops of Angel spittle bounced harmlessly off her Eva's chest plates. 

"Asuka, disengage from close combat and try to grab the palette rifle," Shigeru said. "It's two hundred meters at your five o'clock." 

"Too far!" shouted Asuka. She had other plans. Eva 02 hit an armored fist into the face of the Angel, hitting it so hard its head snapped back with a crunch, its body staggering a few steps backwards. Gasping, Asuka's brow furrowed with frustration. Two hundred meters was too far when the Thirteenth Angel was concerned. Asuka changed the position of the Progressive Knife in her Eva's hand, preparing to stab. 

"She's trying to stab it?" Ritsuko asked, inredulous. She grabbed an intercom as the Angel ran towards Asuka at breakneck speed. Ritsuko's hand wrapped itself around the microphone as the Angel leapt into the sky, its unnaturally long arms rushing forward to try and strangle Eva 02. 

"Asuka! No! The Progressive Knife can't…" 

Asuka's reaction to the attack was rapid; the Progressive Knife was brought dead center unto the armored hand that was reaching out for its throat. Ritsuko watched with dismay as the Progressive Knife broke into pieces upon contact with the armored arm. 

Asuka screamed in frustration, then pain, as the Angel's hands reached her Eva's throat and began to throttle it. Asuka made choking sounds, seemingly struggling to breathe. There was a danger she could pass out from the pain.

"Quick! Pilot vital signs!" Ritsuko shouted. 

Eva 02 dropped the shattered Progressive Knife, as Asuka ordered its hands to try and break the stranglehold the Angel has on her Eva's neck. 

"Pulse up 10, sync is down 3 percent…" Someone rattled off the numbers. 

"I don't want that! Is the pilot's destardo manifesting?" Ritsuko yelled, trying to find the information herself, furiously keying in commands into the MAGI.

Asuka somehow managed to break free. 

"No destardo manifesting, good!" Ritsuko shouted out loud to no one in particular. Shigeru's eyes opened wide in shock at the mention of the word. 

Asuka growled, like an angry animal, before she let out a bloodcurdling yell that was so loud and angry that the some of the communications officers threw off their earpieces, unable to withstand the pain that was amplified in their ears. 

The Angel charged at Eva 02, knocking it down to the ground, but Asuka managed to roll with the tackle, taking both her Eva and the Angel to the smooth wall of the crater, smashing the Angel's back onto the smooth granite. Asuka commanded her Eva to throw the Angel onto the ground, but the Angel grabbed hold of Eva 02's shoulders, making it fall down as well, but Asuka's combat experience worked to her advantage. She let her Eva fall on top of the Angel, pinning its unnaturally long arms under her. The Angel attempted to kick out from under Asuka, but she was not having any of it, commanding her Eva to start pounding at the Angel at any available point, head, chest, abdomen. The thick black armor of the Angel began to buckle as Asuka ordered her Eva to hit it again and again and again. 

The Angel made angry roaring and howling noises but was helplessly pinned down as Asuka pounded its armored chest over and over again. 

"What the… Asuka! No! Stop! Stop!" Shigeru shouted, as the eerie feeling of déjà vu overtook him. Sections of the Angel's armor began to shake off under Asuka's constant pounding. There was no reply from Asuka, except for the sound of heavy breathing.

"Cut 50% of the A-10 nerve connections!" Ritsuko shouted, anticipating Shigeru's orders. "We can't allow her sync rate to rise any higher!!" 

It was too late, as Asuka broke the Angel's chest plate, exposing its red core and its grey-brown flesh to the open air. 

"Die! Die! Die!" Asuka finally said, or rather shouted, over and over again, as her Eva started to hit the Angel's exposed red core. Experience told her that once an Angel's core was breached it would die. 

Ritsuko tried to stop her. "Asuka! No! You'll breach the…" 

The Angel core can no longer take the incessant pounding from Asuka's Eva and cracked, then imploded as an armored fist shattered it.

The next thing everyone knew, a giant cross-shaped pillar of light rose from the crater that housed NERV. There was no flash, no heat, no thunderous detonation, just a single white pillar of light that erupted from the ground, flaring out as it neared its apex into two arms, like a cross, that reached upwards almost a mile high. . 

Shinji could see it from Matsushiro. 

"Good job, Asuka," Shinji said, smiling at the sight of Asuka's apparent victory. 

So too could Admiral Starling from the bridge of his ship, miles away from the coast of Japan. 

"This isn't going according to plan," he mumbled to himself darkly. 

Alone in a bombproof shelter, somewhere below the streets of the last surviving precinct of Tokyo 03, Hikari Horaki could not see the flaring light, but could rather sense something has changed. She wondered if she could come out of the shelter now. 

There was silence in the Geofront crater, but there was chaos in the buildings safely buried undernetath it. Shigeru, Ritsuko and the NERV battle staff were desperately trying to regain communications with Asuka in Eva 02, but the MAGI screens were all blank. The Angel was definitely gone, but the Evangelion was silent.

"Commander, end the red alert. Take the buildings up," Ritsuko said, almost breathless from the anxiety. She could feel that something was wrong, but had no idea what. 

"Hmm.." Shigeru nodded, then turned to bellow out the order. 

"Stand down from red alert! Raise the buildings!" 

There was still no word from Asuka when the buildings stopped rumbling up to ground level. 

As soon as the buildings stopped rising out of the ground, the doors opened, and a multitude of NERV personnel burst out into the Geofront crater. The air shimmered in the heat of the day, but it was clear enough for everyone to see. 

The Angel was gone, and it took Eva 02 with it. 

"No!" shouted Ritsuko. 

"Eva unit 02... Asuka… gone…" was all Shigeru could say, his mind still trying to accept what his eyes told him. 

Ritsuko ran to the spot where she last saw Asuka and the Angel battle before anyone else gathered their wits enough to try and stop her. She stopped suddenly, reaching out her hand, as if trying to grab something that only she could see. 

Shigeru could do nothing but shake his head in sorrow. The other NERV staff looked on, stunned. Ritsuko looked up and down, this way and that, kicking up dust with her high heeled shoes that got into her eyes, irritating them and forcing a tear to form at the corner of her eyes. 

She bit her lip, curling her hands into a fist. This is not the time or place, she told herself over and over again. She took stiff, mechanical steps back to where Shigeru was waiting for her, an uncertain expression on his face. She walked for what felt like eternity before she was finally face to face with him. She could feel all the eyes of NERV, and perhaps, the world, on her, waiting for an explanation. 

"What happened?" Shigeru asked tentatively. 

"I don't know." Ritsuko said, wringing her hands in a confused mix of frustration and grief.

"Shinji!" Ritsuko cried out.  "What am I going to tell Shinji?!" she half-shouted, half-sobbed. The tears in her eyes now had nothing to do with dust. 

Shigeru dumbly watched his chief scientist fall apart in front of the men, but he regained his composure rapidly, straightening up his posture, before turning around to face the various NERV personnel that was now gawking at the empty spot where an Evangelion used to be. 

"Doctor Akagi, you're granted two weeks compassionate leave," Shigeru finally said, as Ritsuko nodded her acknowledgement. "I'll have the best brains in the world figure out what happened. If we can bring Asuka back…"

Shigeru paused halfway, feeling the weight of several hundred pairs of eyes on him. 

"Back to your posts!" Shigeru ordered. "Yellow alert until further notice!" 

"Thank you, Aoba," Ritsuko mumbled. Despite her anguished state, she knew that he was allowing her the chance to break down in private, away from public view. She stood there dumbly, her back towards everyone, until she heard the doors close, then the last of her self-control fled, and she sank to her knees in the dirt, sobbing, her hands covering her face, the dust rising up in eddies to her chest and shoulders. 

The last time she had felt like this was when her mother was found splattered over the floor of the Command Center of the old Geofront, so many years ago. 

Ritsuko Akagi continued to sob, paying the price for daring to actually care about someone. 

She slowly tried to rise to her feet, rising unsteadily on legs that felt like jelly. She had to get out of the crater, then break the news to Shinji, then afterwards, if there was anything she could do to get Asuka back, do it. 

"Are you all right, Senpai?" asked a small, quiet woman's voice from behind her. 

It was enough to shock Ritsuko back into the world, making her spin around as fast as she could in the direction the voice came from. There was no one there. 

"Maya?!" Ritsuko asked, confused.There was no one there.There was no one else in the crater, she reassured herself, everyone else was back in the buildings, and Maya was dead. 

Despite the heat, and her own sense of grief, Ritsuko shivered. She gathered her lab coat around her, and walked slowly away in a daze. Shinji was the only thing on her mind now.

"Gone?! Totally gone?!" asked Admiral Starling, who was now unable to even pretend to smile. 

"Correct, there are no organic remnants to salvage." replied Shigeru, his grave tones seemingly resonating behind his hands. He rested his head behind steepled hands, but his eyes were visible enough, and it was easy to see that he was as shocked as anyone else. 

There was a brief moment of static, and Shigeru lost Starling's video feed, leaving the words "sound only" on his MAGI terminal. 

"So Lt. Langley is officially dead?" asked the disembodied voice of Admiral Starling. 

"No, NERV procedure is to list her as missing for a year before we issue a death certificate."  
  


There was a few seconds of silence. They were probably trying to restore visuals, Shigeru thought. When Starling spoke again, there was still no improvement. 

"Of course. I'll ask the Secretary-General's office to issue an immediate death certificate for Lt. Langley. The death benefits would be available to the next of kin within 24 hours" said Starling, the smile slowly returning to his face, as if the loss of the only Evangelion and it's pilot was simply an annoyance 

"Ah, I don't really think that would be necessary," Shigeru said, confused by Starling's reaction to Asuka's disappearance. He was expecting fire and brimstone, not compassion and an early release of death benefits.

"On the contrary. It's the least I can do. She sacrificed herself for us, Commander. I'll have someone let you know when the paperwork's done. Starling out," followed by silence as the communications link was terminated.

Shinji's car stopped on the outskirts of Hakone. The road was once a busy highway that linked Hakone to Gotenba, but it was now dead quiet, the volume of traffic reduced to  nothing when most of the population died. 

There was another car parked outside the road. Through the tinted glass, Shinji could see Ritsuko was standing outside, leaning against it, her head bowed and looking at the ground, totally unlike her usual proud, cool demeanour. 

One of his bodyguards opened the door and gestured for him to get out, which he did. Shinji took a few tentative steps towards Ritsuko, wondering why she wanted to see him here, instead of just waiting for him to come home.

At the sight of him, Ritsuko ran up towards him, covering the distance between them seemingly in an instant. Before he could react, she held him in a tight embrace, her hands cold against his back, even her body against his didn't seem warm. Shinji gasped in surprise, which was met with Ritsuko's sobbing. Her arms held him even tighter against her body, as if she was drowning and he was the only thing that kept her afloat. Shinji became flustered, trying to squirm away, but Ritsuko held on with desperate strength, and he found himself unable to break free of the sobbing woman. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Ritsuko sobbed over and over again, her tears running from her face into his shoulders. 

"NERV Lieutenant Langley officially MIA pending confirmation of death. Eva 02 destroyed…" Shigeru looked at the words on his screen, in large red letters over a black background. It was his official report to the Security Council regarding the disaster. He had sat there in his office ever since he told Starling the bad news, trying to find the words for the report, but grief clouded his mind.

He sent the message to the UN anyway, then angrily turned the computers in his room off. 

Shigeru sat there, blankly staring ahead. His mind went back to almost a year ago, to the day of the Third Impact, the day Asuka died the first time. 

"Damn it, these things don't give up! And I can't even rely on that idiot Shinji!" Asuka yelled over the communications systems as she smashed another Mass Production Eva into submission. 

Her Eva thrashed the nine Mass Production Evangelions, breaking spines, slicing off legs, smashing heads. Shigeru remembered, and he had felt hope then, despite being cut off from the rest of NERV, and with JSDF forces still in control over much of the Geofront, that he was going to see tomorrow. 

"These are the last ones!" she shouted. 

Then she fell the replica copy of the Lance of Longinus pinning her Eva's head to the ground. 

Yet, Asuka refused to accept her fate, defiantly commanding her unpowered Evangelion to rise again through sheer willpower. 

She failed. Eight other lances pierced the body of Eva 02.

Shigeru remembered Maya's horrible gasp, which confirmed what he and Makoto had already known in their hearts.   The dark memory of that day replayed itself in his head in a continuing loop. Asuka Sohryu Langley was dead. Maybe for good this time, and Shigeru was there both times. The question that won't go away in his mind resurfaced to fill his thoughts: What if there really was nothing he could do to prevent the Third Impact?

Shigeru buried his head in his hands, the dark waves of despair washing over him.

Shinji sat on one of the sofas in Ritsuko's apartment, curling up into a fetal position, his head buried beneath his arms, his face touching his knees. 

"Misato, help!" Ritsuko cried out inside, her heart was being broken all over again in the same day. Asuka had disappeared less than six hours ago, and now Shinji was shutting himself off from the world again. He didn't respond to food or speech, and he didn't even try to pull away when she tried to touch him. Pen-Pen was waddling around the apartment, uninterested in the affairs of the humans. Ritsuko stared hard at Shinji's brown hair, observing his breathing patterns as his chest rose and fell. 

"Shinji," Ritsuko said softly, trying yet again to get a response. 

"Shinji, there's hope," Ritsuko continued, to no reaction from the boy. "I don't think Asuka's dead. There's so many unknowns when it comes to S2 engines and Angel cores, like the time you fell into the…" 

Shinji did not respond. 

Ritsuko stopped talking, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her knowledge of psychology told her that he was being driven into a despair fuelled state of deliberate apathy, much like what had happened to Asuka after the Fifteenth Angel directly invaded her mind. 

"Please Shinji, don't lose the will to live," Ritsuko said in desperation, shaking his shoulders violently. 

Shinji remained silent. Ritsuko gave up, her hands suddenly pulling away from his shoulders.

Her eyes lowered, a long sigh escaping her lungs. After a few seconds, she stood up, took a long, lingering look at Shinji and walked away slowly and silently, her mind determined to help him live through this, no matter what. 

"I won't fail you. I'm not my mother. I'm not Misato," Ritsuko silently swore to herself, as she gently closed the door to Shinji's apartment.


	6. A3I:A false return to life

There wasn't supposed to be anyone left in the little fishing village on the northern tip of Sakhalin Island. The weather was pleasant enough now after the climactic changes caused by the Second Impact. There certainly was enough fish now to suppport an economy. The island that was seized from the Japanese at the end of the Great Patriotic War simply no longer had a population, every single man, woman and child killed in the Third Impact. Which suited the nameless fisherman well. He had a name once, which would instantly identify him as Chinese, but he simply no longer had any use for it. When there was no one else to compare yourself with, a name had no purpose. The singularity that was his existence did not need validation from others. He had lived happily alone in the deserted village, feeding off the sea, a steady catch of salmon and shrimp keeping him alive, alone and happy.  
  
Thus, that afternoon, when he saw the naked woman washed up on the beach, he was quite disturbed. She seemed Japanese, with long straight bluish- black hair that reached halfway down her back. She was covered all over in seaweed and sand, her face was half-buried in the sand with just enough space between her nose and the wet sand to let her breathe. She was breathing all right, the nameless fisherman noted, her back rising and falling with each breath. He had come back from death himself, and he had heard about how everyone else came back, but this was the first time he had saw someone else's return. He held her by the shoulders and turned her over, the gentle lapping of the waves lapping around the unconscious woman's ankles.  
  
She had a heart-shaped face, framed by wet strands of hair. Her body was lithe and strong, and felt so comfortably soft in his hands. He swallowed hard, the dark fires of lust suddenly burning inside of him. He briefly fought his conscience, then started to touch her, roughly bringing his hands upon her breasts, ignoring the ugly scar that ran down her chest. He began to breathe heavily, and his hands were practically mauling her as he savored this latest catch from the sea.  
  
His heavy stroking and brute ministrations woke the woman up, but he wasn't aware of that, as his face was too deeply buried in her breasts. He heard her sharp intake of breath, then everything went black as her fist struck him square in the temple, knocking him out.  
  
Misato kicked her would-be rapist off her, then she staggered to her feet, looking left and right in confusion.  
  
"Where am I?" she asked aloud. She wondered what was going on. She remembered sending Shinji off to the Eva hangars, and she knew she was laying face down on the cold floor outside the elevator, dying. She gasped and checked her back and chest, looking for bullet wounds that were no longer there, not even leaving a scar.  
  
Misato was now very confused, rather cold and very, very naked. She looked down on the form of the man she took out, her lips forming a determined scowl as she set about her task.  
  
First, clothes, she thought. Then find out what the hell is going on, and find Shinji-kun.  
  
"He needs me, " she thought to herself. "He's calling for me."  
  
NEON  
  
GENESIS  
  
EVANGELION  
  
A3I: A False Return to Life  
  
That very afternoon, Shinji and Hikari were walking each other home from school. It had been less than two weeks since Asuka was vaporized in an explosion fighting the Thirteenth Angel, but Shinji was now back at school and trying to get himself an education.  
  
Going back to school so quickly surprised everyone, but most of all, Shinji himself. He mver could have believed he had the willpower to continue schooling after all that had happened.  
  
Hikari glanced at Shinji, his face blank. She was so surprised to see him turn up in school so soon after Asuka's death, but she had hugged him welcome nonetheless. He had kept quiet in class, as usual, but she noticed that unlike the other Eva pilots in the past,he was actually trying to learn in class. Asuka was there only to socialize and brush up her Kanji, and Rei was merely window dressing.  
  
"Have you finished your homework, Shinji?" Hikari asked, breaking the silence.  
  
"Yes," Shinji replied meekly. He continued to walk on in silence. "It's very hard to do."  
  
Hikari furrowed her brow at the remark. "The homework? " she asked, unsure.  
  
"I have to do it all on my own, " Shinji replied quietly. "Asuka's not around to help me with it anymore." Shinji lowered his head again, as silence returned to envelop them both. They walked a few more minutes through the streets of Tokyo-03's only surviving precinct, a neatly arranged suburban array of apartment blocks, now abandoned, and wide empty streets. This is where they both lived through the first wave of Angel attacks, and the days leading up to the Third Impact.  
  
"Shinji," Hikari spoke, disrupting the hypnotic beat of their footsteps on the cracking, dry asphalt. He stopped and looked at her in the eyes.  
  
"Why doesn't it hurt?" Hikari asked suddenly, desperately, unable anymore to keep the question to herself. She took a step closer to him, her eyes scanning his own.  
  
"I don't know," Shinji said in resignation. It was a question he had asked himself without ever finding a satisfactory answer. He asked Misato once, shortly after Rei destroyed her Evangelion against the Sixteenth Angel, but her answer frightened him. He had no wish to ask Ritsuko the same question, for he feared her almost as much as he feared what her answer would be.  
  
"Why are we doing this, Shinji? Why are even in school ? Almost everybody's dead, now Asuka's gone, and we still worry about homework? Shinji, can't you see how stupid all this is?" Hikari said, or rather, blurted out, the words, while her hand made a lightning-quick grab at his arm, reinforcing her point. "What's the point of it all?" She asked again.  
  
"Uhh.. Homeostatis," was Shinji's panicky answer.  
  
"What?" Hikari asked, her grip on his arm loosening in surprise.  
  
"Ritsuko said. all of this, it's proof we're getting on with our lives," Shinji stammered out the words, Ritsuko's words from what seemed an eternity ago coming back to his mind. "She said no matter how much things change, we always try to adapt to it, so we can live on,"  
  
Hikari released Shinji's arm, her own mind digesting the truth that escaped his lips.  
  
"Wow. Ritsuko said that?" Hikari asked again.  
  
Shinji nodded.  
  
"There's no pain for the heartless," Hikari said, and then fell silent again. She started walking again, at first by herself, but then Shinji ran up to her, trying to catch up as she started walking faster and faster, past the abandoned cars that nobody bothered to tow away. Shinji broke out into a small run trying to catch up with her.  
  
"I'll see you in school tomorrow, I think," Hikari said as they approached the building where she lived.  
  
  
  
Shortly afterwards, Shinji arrived at his own apartment. He stared at the door blankly for a few minutes, absently reaching in his pocket for the key. He tried one pocket, then the other, then stopped briefly to sigh in frustration, having lost the key for the second time in a week. His knuckles rapped out a secret rhythm on the door, which promplty opened from the inside. The bodyguard inside bowed briefly to him as a measure of respect and greeting. Shinji sighed, walking right past his bodyguard, into his bedroom, closing the door as he threw his tired body onto the bed, staring at the familiar patterns of the ceiling.  
  
Why doesn't it hurt? He asked himself.  
  
Was Hikari right, then? He asked himself again.  
  
Ritsuko said that no matter how the enviroment changes, the living would try to adapt. Ritsuko made sense. Life does go on for her, Shinji noted. Ritsuko was different from before, but she was living her life. In fact, like everyone else, she chose to live her life, Shinji thought silently.  
  
Hikari said that the heartless feel no pain, and she, too, was making sense, although Ritsuko would probably think otherwise. Shinji stared at the ceiling, pondering, his mind slowly beginning to drift far away.  
  
Thousands of miles away, across the Pacific Ocean, Rear-Admiral Richard Alexander Starling walked on solid ground again, the heels of his shoes making dull thumping noises as he walked through the corridors of the Center for Disease Control. His speed was steady, yet he tried hard to control his excitement as he made his way to Lab-E105.  
  
Starling finally reached the door, his hand almost shaking with excitement as he turned the handle. Inside, there was the dull whirr of medical equipment, tubes and flasks, the stereotype of a mad scientist's lab. The project leader was there to greet him.  
  
It seemed like an eternity, dealing with the pleasantries, and the handshake. Starling put on his practiced, easy smile, trying to remind himself that while he had managed to go so far undetected, success was still far away.  
  
"Can I see it?" Starling asked.  
  
A petrri dish filled with something that looked like pink jelly was carefully taken out of what looked like an oven. It was laid on the lab table in front of him. Starling gazed at it for a few moments, then turned again to stare at the man who stood beside him, the leader of the project that would make everything all right again.  
  
"Uh, Doctor Stern, I was expecting something."  
  
"More dramatic, Admiral?" asked the scientist, gesturing at the petri dish. "It hardly works out that way. Take these Langley stem cells. Do you seriously think they'll even let us do this if it weren't for the Impact?"  
  
Starling shrugged indifferently. "I don't see why not. It's key to the Evangelion program."  
  
"But we didn't really care about the Evangelion program then, did we? Entrusted everything to NERV and the UN, for all the good that did everyone,"  
  
"Well, we're making amends for our mistakes now, Doctor. That's what matters. It's just that I can't believe a dead girl is our brightest hope." Starling said, marveling at the potential that laid inert in a petri dish in front of him.  
  
"I wouldn't call her dead. These are still alive," said Stern, tapping the petri dish with a pen.  
  
"What's the next step, then? Clone her?" Starling asked, still eyeing the pinkish substance in the petri dish, the last earthly remains of Asuka Sohryu Langley.  
  
"Possibly. There are many possibilities ."  
  
Starling raised his hand to stop the speech.  
  
"Look, if it gets us a pilot for the Eva, it's good enough for me," he said. He looked at the petri dish again, trying to convince himself that it was the salvation of the United States. "You think you can meet the deadline the President has set?"  
  
"No problems yet, Admiral." Said Stern, gently picking up the petri dish and putting it back where it came from.  
  
"Your country thanks you, Doctor Stern" Starling said, his smile growing wider. He turned around to leave. This plan seemed to work, and that made him happy. If everything went well, the United States would have its own Eva, and its own pilot. Petitioning the United Nations to declare Asuka dead, then quickly seizing all known samples of her blood and DNA before they were destroyed, was the hard part. The next part, the salvaging of the nine Mass-Production Evangelions, was out of his hands. Still, he had to congratulate himself for a job well done.  
  
Now it was a matter of stringing NERV along.  
  
It was a long and tiring day for Ritsuko, as she gently eased the blue sports car in between the yellow lines in the parking lot. She poked her head out of the open window to check, making sure that she had placed the car dead center, then gave herself a satisfied shrug, and killed the engine. She hurriedly stepped out of the car and closed the door, noting the parking lot was, as usual, practically empty. Ritsuko looked the car over, a Renault Alpine similar to the one Misato drove, before she locked the car and walked to the apartment block where Shinji and herself lived. She slung a small bag over her left shoulder and started walking, the tapping of her heels on the hot tarmac soon lulling her mind into a relaxed state.  
  
Ritsuko slowly climbed the stairs up to her apartment, her mind seemingly blank yet focused on her task. She steadily made her way to the door, and opened it, putting down her bag as soon as she stepped inside. She stooped down, grabbing something from inside the bag, before closing the door again. It was time to start cooking dinner. She briefly racked her mind, trying to recall what she had planned for the day, before she remembered that it was Wednesday, udon noodle with miso soup day. She set about cooking, taking care to be as precise and exact with the measurements as possible, before she added her special ingredient into the soup mix.  
  
She stirred the powdered mixture into the soup rapidly. The dosage was necessarily heavy, to account for the chemical breakdown of the antidepressant drugs in a hot liquid. Ritsuko stirred faster, almost frantically, wishing the powdered mix would disappear faster. It was the only way, she reminded herself, fighting the growing sense of betrayal.  
  
Pen-Pen, that stupid, greedy bird, stood in a corner, its beady eyes fixed on Ritsuko. Ritsuko tried her best to ignore the accusing stare of the only witness to her crime, focusing with steely determination on her grim task, almost failing to notice the creeping red glow that came through the window, signalling nightfall.  
  
Night began to fall on Japan, and the red arch of damned souls became clearer in the night sky. In the Geofront crater, Shigeru tried his best not to look into the sky, as he made his way to his official car. His shoulders were slumped, and he walked slowly, as if the burdens placed on him had physical mass. He glanced sideways at partially dismantled scaffolding, the makeshift cage for Eva 02 before it vanished. He muttered a brief prayer for Asuka, hoping the girl was in a better place. Granted, he never really got to know her as well as Misato did, but her fate was horrible enough to leave a mark on his soul. He felt sorry for whover it was that was going to become the Sixth Child. A legacy of madness and death awaited the next Evangelion pilot.  
  
The poor Child who will be named during the upcoming meeting with representatives of Japan and the UN.  
  
He got into the car, and with a wave of his hand, ordered the driver to get going. Hopefully, the rocking motions of the car would help him sleep on the two hour trip to Tokyo 02.  
  
Shinji lay on his bed, his eyes closed. He had fallen asleep soon after he returned home from school. His body lay still, his chest rising and falling slowly with each breath. Red light shone from the darkening sky through the curtains, falling over him. His body was at peace with the world, totally unlike his mind.  
  
In his mind, he lay on the hard wooden floor of a vast, empty room, so big he could not see the walls or celing, only blackness as far as he can see. He felt no pain, yet he knew that his ribs were cracked and his insides were bruised and battered, yet he felt no pain.  
  
Asuka stood over him, in her school uniform, contempt gleaming in her cold blue eyes.  
  
She drew her foot back and kicked him in the sternum.  
  
"Idiot!" Asuka snarled.  
  
"Useless!" She spat at him, her foot kicking him again, this time in the stomach.  
  
"Coward!" She kicked his face. "Spineless!" She stomped on his stomach again, making him gasp for breath. Even though he knew he felt no pain.  
  
Asuka kicked his prone form over and over again, with each kick, cursing him for what he had become. Suddenly she stopped, and Shinji forced himself to look up at her, her red hair framing her face, the coldness of her blue eyes rapidly disappearing, as her pupils started dilating and her mouth gasped open in fear.  
  
"No.." Asuka whispered, suddenly frightened. "You stupid perverted idiot. You're not hurt, you don't care.. you don't care.. you don't care!!" Asuka manically chanted the words over and over again, her body trembling in despair.  
  
Shinji felt the urge to stand up, say something to her, but he knew that he wasn't able to move, only to lie on the cold wooden floor as Asuka fell to her knees, her face buried in her hands. From behind her hands he could hear her sobbing.  
  
"You don't care. You never cared!"  
  
"Asuka." Shinji stammered.  
  
"I'm just your jerk-off toy. You never cared!"  
  
"That's.. That's not true!" Shinji replied, hesitant at first, as he found himself trying to stand.  
  
He found himself standing on unsteady feet. He found that once he stood up, he could see the lime green walls and the white ceiling. He could see out the window, into the artificial forest outside the pyramid in the old Geofront. He could hear the silent beep of the medical equipment.  
  
"Isn't this you?" Asuka asked him.  
  
"No!" Shinji shouted, trying to avert his eyes from Asuka's semi-nude body that lay on the hospital bed in Room 303.  
  
"Yes it is. This is you using me as a doll," Asuka quietly said from her bed. Shinji felt something wet in his hand. He fought the urge to look at it, but there was no use. He knew what it was.  
  
"I.. I'm scum," he whispered, loathing himself.  
  
"You made me your doll," Asuka said, emotionless, the words leaving her prone form on the hospital bed.  
  
"All I am to you, a doll."  
  
Shinji could bear no more, he found the door, tore it open and ran through the empty corridors of the old Geofront. He ran this way and that, turning left and right at random. He ran and ran until he could run away no more from Asuka's cold truth.  
  
He found himself in a darkened room, lit only by a small yellow emergency light. He could hear voices talking.  
  
"All he cares about, these things without a soul." Said a female voice.  
  
"I hate them, so I destroy them," the voice said again, as the lights turned on. Shinji gasped in horror at the sight. He was now back in the cloning chamber, and Ritsuko had just turned on the lights, letting the world see her handiwork. Shinji tried to avert his eyes, but simply couldn't. His eyes once again took in the horror as the many bodies in the tanks slowly fell apart, arms, legs, head, all slowly detaching and floating away from each other.  
  
Ritsuko noticed him, turning her head towards him and a smile gradually crept up her haggard, tired face.  
  
"Thank you, Shinji-kun, you've been a great help" Ritsuko said, smiling.  
  
Shinji shuddered as he felt something cold and plastic in his hand. Trembling, he looked to see his hand clutched tightly around a handheld datapad, the small hand-held terminals that served as remote controls to the MAGI supercomputers. His thumb was on the big OK button and the button was depressed.  
  
Shinji numbly dropped the remote onto the ground. He glanced up at the dead parts of Rei that were floating in the cloning tanks. Arms, fingers, legs, all unable to keep their attachments to one another, now that he had changed the pressure of the LCL. A stray head spun lazily in the LCL, twisting to face him as it collided with a floating, disembodied thigh.  
  
The sightless eyes of Asuka, still framed in her flaming red hair, stared lifelessly back at him, her dead mouth slightly opened as if to curse him in bitter hate one last desperate time. For one long agonizing, unbearable second of pain, those dead eyes gazed past his defenses, past his flesh, searing right through the fragile glass thing that he supposed was his soul. Then the head too, disintegrated, falling into pieces in slow motion inside the LCL.  
  
Ritsuko made her way purposefully towards him, clutching his shoulders and bringing her face to his, her mouth opening to quietly whisper "it's not your fault."  
  
Shinji blinked in disbelief, and that was all it took, as Ritsuko's face had disappeared, to be replaced with Misato's face, as he last saw her, a thin trickle of blood starting to escape the corner of her smiling lips.  
  
"Come Shinji, return to me, isn't this what I sent you out to find?" Misato said almost desperately, as she brought her tender lips closer to kiss him again.  
  
"I think the right thing to do is smile," said Rei's voice, as the face in front of him changed again.  
  
"Un.. No. No." Shinji stammered, confused.  
  
"So I can't have all of you.. So you can't ever have me!" Asuka shouted, as she let her lips touch his, just like that time in Misato's apartment. He surrendered, and closed his eyes.  
  
Shinji next opened his eyes to look at Ritsuko shaking him awake, her face obscuring his view of the ceiling. The red light that filtered in through the window told him it was night.  
  
"Unnhh.. Dinnertime, Ritsuko-san?" Shinji asked, still groggy, and truth be told, he was a little shaken from the experience.  
  
"Yes. You're a hard person to rouse, Shinji-kun," Ritsuko replied flatly, as a thin-lipped smile appeared on her lips, masking the worried frown that she wore just seconds earlier. One of Shinji's bodyguards stood behind Ritsuko, his face, as usual, an unobstrusive, unreadable mask.  
  
"You might want to freshen up first, then come and join me for dinner. I'm sure Pen-Pen would like to see you again," Ritsuko said.  
  
Shinji sat up in his bed, shaking off the grogginess, and for a brief second, he looked out the window, into the sky, mesmerized by the beauty of the ring of souls.  
  
"It is beautiful," Misato admitted to herself. She had wandered the deserted village for hours, trying to find someone, anyone, who could help her, or at least tell her what was going on.  
  
When night fell, and the red arch in the sky began to become visible, Misato was still walking on the road, trying to find another living soul and the sight caused her to shiver with an unnatural cold. At first she was convinced that she had entered the Hell they used to warn her about in church, but she was sure that in Hell, the road signs wouldn't be in Cyrillic.  
  
She was in Russia, she concluded. Her rational mind protested the conclusion vehemently, reminding her that she was supposed to be dying outside the R-10-20 elevator, not being mauled by a stinking vagabond on a beach in Russia.  
  
Misato's bare foot caught on something soft. She stopped, looking down. She sighed, seeing her foot stepping on yet another rotting pile of abandoned clothes. There had to be hundreds of these all over the village. She snorted, and kicked them away.  
  
The sky is filled with strange red luminous things, not a human soul in sight, except for the would-be rapist she beat up at the beach. Piles of clothes strewn everywhere, and there was the mystery of how she wound up in Russia in the first place. Of all these things that competed for her attention, hunger had laid low, waiting for its time, and now its biological insistence can no longer be denied.  
  
Misato clutched her growling stomach, suddenly reminded that she had not eaten since she had woken up. She looked around for a place to eat, and more importantly, something to eat. She made steady steps towards what looked like a general store. Hopefully they had canned beans at the very least.  
  
  
  
In Ritsuko's apartment, the food was simple, but plentiful. Shinji usually ate just enough to keep hunger away, but tonight, he had actually slurped down two noodles of soba noodles in miso soup. He couldn't explain why, but after the first few bites, a gentle swelling of pleasure seemed to manifest in his belly, egging him to go for more.  
  
Ritsuko sat opposite him, quietly finishing the last of the grilled eel. Her eyes carefully watched the boy in front of her, as she had done since Asuka disappeared fighting the Thirteenth Angel. Since the day she decided that only pharmaceuticals could help Shinji deal with the burdens of his life.  
  
"How was school?" Ritsuko asked cautiously.  
  
Shinji shrugged. "Hikari was upset about it today,"  
  
Ritsuko hummed absently. "Why so, Shinji-kun? Too much homework?"  
  
"She said it was all so pointless," Shinji put down his spoon, and his eyes looked into Ritsuko's own. "Everything's gone and we're supposed to worry about kanji and math."  
  
Ritsuko's eyes narrowed, in a way, she was trying to shield her soul from being exposed to Shinji's gaze.  
  
"So what do you feel about all that?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice even and uninvolved.  
  
"Nothing" came the reply.  
  
"Shinji, do you know that there was a pregnancy reported in Gifu today?" Ritsuko asked, as she picked up her chopsticks again.  
  
"No."  
  
"It means life is continuing, Shinji. Even after the Third Impact, life continues. When that baby is born, it would never have seen the Third Impact. It would life its life free of our burdens." Ritsuko picked up a rice ball with the chopsticks  
  
Shinji looked on, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"  
  
Ritsuko finished chewing the rice ball, washing it down with a sip of warm green tea.  
  
"It's an example, Shinji, it's proof of the power of the will to live. School is part of your life, don't you agree?"  
  
Shinji nodded dumbly.  
  
"So if you stopped going to school, you wouldn't be living your life properly. That wouldn't be called life. It's better to stay up there with the dead rather than exist in a hollow excuse for a life. Do you see that now, Shinji?" Ritsuko asked him gently.  
  
"Life is unbearable alone," Shinji remarked.  
  
The simple remark stabbed through Ritsuko's heart, rending open her very soul. Shinji had unwittingly reminded her that her entire life prior to the Impact, was spent alone. Ritsuko had always existed alone. She could see it all now.  
  
She could remember it in the way she always tried to get rid of Misato whenever the poor woman came up to her to just have a chat. She could remember when she refused poor Maya's sincere offers for coffee after work. She could remember when the loneliness drove her into the arms of the monster that destroyed all life.  
  
Ritsuko's hand involuntarily clenched into a fist, the violent spasm splitting the chopsticks she held.  
  
Shinji gasped. Ritsuko looked at the broken pieces of the chopsticks in her hand.  
  
"I don't know my own strength," Ritsuko commented absently. "Well, finish your meal, I have some cleaning up to do." Ritsuko said, as Shinji obediently started shovelling the food back into his mouth.  
  
He didn't stay behind to watch TV. He didn't even offer to clean up after the meal. Shinji silently made his way to the door, shuffling quietly as Pen-Pen looked on, nonplussed.  
  
"Shinji-kun,"  
  
Shinji stopped in his tracks and turned around to see Ritsuko standing up in her green blouse and black skirt, her hand on her hips, her eyes fixed right on him.  
  
"You're welcome to move back in here if you think it's too lonely by yourself," Ritsuko offered hesitantly.  
  
Shinji stood there, thinking of a response.  
  
"Think about it," Ritsuko said. "Let me know any time if you want to live here again."  
  
Two hours and a disquieting car ride later, Shigeru tiredly stepped out of the car in Tokyo 02, Japan's new capital city. He saw the building, noting that it lacked the grandeur, the exaggeration of importance that typified government buildings. He couldn't tell this particular building apart from any other office building, save for the presence of blue-bereted United Nations peacekeepers at the entrance, who saluted him.  
  
Shigeru didn't return the salute, but instead offered a cursory wave of the hand. He walked past the open door, and was met by a well-dressed European man. His escort, Shigeru supposed.  
  
"Where is it?" he asked wearily.  
  
"Right this way sir, follow me," replied the man, in a terribly foreign accented mess that resembled Japanese. Shigeru scowled a little at the man's pronunciation, but bit his tounge and followed him sullenly, his eyes searching everywhere for signs of more blue-berets. He rode up the lifts, walked past doors, strode through empty offfices with its rows and rows of unfilled desks, and finally came to his final destination.  
  
"The Azusa Room, sir. Please come in, the others have been waiting for you" said Shigeru's escort, or at least something like that, it was to tell from the mangled Japanese. Shigeru snarled something in reply, and walked in, his eyes glaring at everyone else seated around the oval table. He wordlessly pulled up a random chair and threw himself on it, glaring at each and every one at the table, letting them all know his displeasure about these midnight meetings.  
  
"This is about Revival, correct?" Shigeru asked.  
  
"Yes, Commander, now that you've mentioned it first, we'd like to confirm your combat-readiness," said Yoshikawa, who represented Japan to these infernal Supervising Commitee meetings.  
  
Shigeru opened his mouth to speak, but Castanza interrupted him.  
  
"Thank you, Commander, I think the look on your face says it all. No Eva, no Children, and we're all going to die again when the next one comes along,"  
  
Shigeru winced at that remark, but he bit his lip, determined not to be talked down to in these meetings. "If that is true, then it certainly would help if you were to release the refurbished Eva into my care as soon as possible, isn't it?" he asked, eyes staring daggers at Castanza.  
  
"Given that NERV has destroyed every Eva ever assigned to it, Commander, that isn't very reassuring. We can't keep spending billions and billions of Euro on making Evas so NERV can self-destruct them on the whims of a Child" said Castanza again.  
  
Shigeru wanted to bang his head on the table in frustration. As if Admiral Starling wasn't bad enough, he bitterly thought. He fought the urge, only his furrowed brow betraying any emotion.  
  
Yoshikawa spoke again. "Commander, please don't take this the wrong way, but you do understand that as the only line of defense left, we do have a right to be concerned."  
  
"Yes," Shigeru dumbly nodded. Something told him he was being led to slaughter.  
  
"Now, about the Revival Project," Yoshikawa said, peering over his glasses to look at Shigeru. "The Security Council has voted to release Eva 05 to NERV..."  
  
"With conditions," Shigeru guessed. How stupid did they think he was?  
  
"Please, Commander, allow me to finish. Well, you see, this is the absolute last Evangelion we could salvage..." Yoshikawa said slowly, choosing his every word carefully. Shigeru noticed the American representative, Wilson, staring at the ceiling absently, twirling a pen in his hand.  
  
"Commander," Yoshikawa said, a slight stress in his voice, reminding Shigeru of the matter at hand.  
  
"Yes, Yoshikawa-san"  
  
"As I was saying, the UN will release the Eva to NERV. Japan will be in charge of transporting the Eva to Tokyo-03. The UN representative to NERV will provide you with the operational details." said Yoshikawa.  
  
"Wait, the UN Representative to NERV is on leave. He's not due to return here for two weeks!" Shigeru protested. He knew the UN well enough by now to know that the Eva won't be released until Starling came back from America.  
  
"Yes, I know Admiral Starling is on leave back home," said Wilson, breaking his silence for the first time. "He's being briefed on the situation and will be on his way here soon."  
  
"There's just one small condition, Commander."  
  
Shigeru knew it.  
  
"A suitable pilot must be found, now that Lt Langley is officially KIA," said Castanza.  
  
"Commander, we have no intention of reactivating Marduk. You have to find a pilot from the previous Marduk suitability report," said Wilson.  
  
"I think the Third Child is available, isn't he?" Yoshikawa asked, more an accusation than a question.  
  
"With all due respect, sirs, I must protest.. The Third Child is psychologically unsuitable for piloting an Eva. This has already been mentioned in the Techical Report last month," Shigeru protested, perhaps too feebly for his own liking.  
  
"Which was prepared by your Chief Scientist" said Castanza.  
  
"Yes," Shigeru nodded in agreement.  
  
"A convicted accesory to genocide. Who just also happens to be the official guardian of the Third Child," Castanza continued again.  
  
"I don't see why the Chief Scientist would want to lie about the Third Child's combat readiness," Shigeru protested again. He began to notice it was rather warm in the sparse meeting room, or perhaps, it was just his own temperature rising. "I have had my share of disagreements with her, of course, but..."  
  
Castanza spoke again, interrupting Shigeru before he could finish the sentence. Wilson, the American, was seemingly uninterested, doodling on the papers in front of him.  
  
"We can't afford to be over-reliant on her, Commander. Remember what she did behind your back the last time."  
  
Shigeru nodded dumbly.  
  
"An independent psychological panel will be flown to Tokyo 03 to examine the Third Child's mental suitability. This psychological asessement will be classified top secret. We trust that the Child, or his circle of people, will not get wind of this until the panel has arrived in Tokyo 03."  
  
"And when will this be?" Shigeru asked, fighting the urge to pull out his hair.  
  
"You will be contacted when they arrive in Japan. The UN expects full cooperation. We must find out once and for all if the Third Child is ready." said Castanza again.  
  
Shigeru sighed. "Very well then. Anything else on the agenda for tonight?"  
  
Yoshikawa shook his head. "Thank you for coming to this meeting on such short notice, Commander. You know the problems with the time difference and all."  
  
"Of course, " Shigeru said as he stood up to leave.  
  
Still they dont trust us, he ruefully thought. He weakly returned the salute of the guard outside, being hte first to leave the room. His effusive guide was waiting outside the door, ready and eager to show him the door.  
  
The ride back to Tokyo-03 was long, silent and spent fully awake. Shigeru silently ruminated on the situation that was unfolding. A new Eva, and a new chance at continuing life.  
  
If only he wasn't stuck with the same old problem. 


	7. A3I: Doctrine

Dawn broke over Japan, the sun's powerful orange rays obliterating the red glow in the sky that came from the billions of dead souls that permanently orbit the earth.  
  
A blue sports car steadily made its way along the newly-repaved road, past electric pylons that once stood tall but were now bent and twisted, forced down onto the earth by the force of N2 explosions. On either side of the road were bomb craters and unexploded ordnance, leftovers from the day the JSDF invaded NERV, the day of the Third Impact.  
  
As the car negotiated a sharp bend, the Pacific Ocean became visible, a giant dead hand lying offshore, its giant palm facing the heavens in a mockery of prayer. Nearby, behind the hills was a giant head split in two, its eyes gaping open, silently watching the car come closer and closer to the sea.  
  
The car slowed down as it reached its final destination, a gigantic hole in the ground almost three kilometres in diameter, and a long way down, separated from the hungry ocean by only several hundred meters of solid earth. This was its destination, the hollowed-out crater that once housed the Black Moon of Lilith, the old Geofront that housed NERV, and continues to house NERV through the resurrection of Man.  
  
There was no parking lot, the car merely stopped alongside the road, along with the other vehicles haphazardly parked along the way. Its occupant, a blond woman, slowly edged herself out of the driver's seat. Ritsuko Akagi closed the car door and walked for a few minutes, her eyes fixed on the pair of dead eyes that stared, unseeing, in her direction. She paused for a second, to curse the abomination that she had failed to destroy.  
  
Ritsuko cursed Ayanami Rei, not loudly, not in an enraged yell for the whole world to hear, but silently, in her laughable excuse for a heart. She cursed her for not being able to stop Gendo when the three of them stood under Lilith. She cursed her for the Impact, and most of all, she cursed Ayanami because she had been able to die with the rest.  
  
The moment passed, and Ritsuko walked to the edge of the crater, waiting for the lift to arrive at the crater's lip and take her down, to the crater bottom, where NERV's engineering and science buildings were. It was going to be another day at work, another day in the life after the Third Impact.  
  
This was what she chose over Heaven itself.  
  
NEON  
  
GENESIS  
  
EVANGELION  
  
A3I: Doctrine  
  
  
  
"What the hell is this?" Shigeru bellowed out from behind his desk. His forefinger impatiently tapped the thick bound file on his desk.  
  
Ritsuko stood there in front of the table, her cool gaze never wavering from the angry young man she had to pay obeisance to. Shigeru Aoba, the Commander of NERV.  
  
"As you can see from the cover, sir, it's the feasibility study on bringing Asuka back." Ritsuko replied, affecting bored tones.  
  
"Look, Ritsuko, I know it's a little hard to deal with, we all miss her, but I don't think.."  
  
Ritsuko interrupted him. She continued to be amazed at how he can still let her interrupt him. She concluded a while ago that the man simply hasn't adjusted to the power he now has.  
  
"There's enough evidence that she was shunted into a Sea of Dirac when Asuka ruptured the core of Eva 03. Just like when Shinji was swallowed into the Twelfth Angel. She's still alive, Commander, just out of reach." Ritsuko said, her eyes fixed on Shigeru's own retinas, yet she was careful not to stare into his eyes too harshly.  
  
"I remember when it was Shinji who was shunted into a Sea of Dirac," Shigeru said, almost wistfully. "You wanted to drop nine hundred N2 mines on him, Ritsuko, if I remember correctly."  
  
"I didn't know then what I do now, Commander. The Sea of Dirac effect is..."  
  
"And I would like to know when did you find the time to research this? Have you been neglecting your official duties?" Shigeru asked before she could finish the sentence, the edge returning to his voice, his eyes steeling for an assault.  
  
"I have a lot of free time on my hands, Commander. You will find that all the projects I am assigned to are on schedule. You can inspect the Eva sockets and the Geofront armament buildings yourself if you want to." Ritsuko said, ignoring the stinging rebuke from Aoba. She reminded herself that the boy has valid reasons to be so hostile to her.  
  
Shigeru nodded, noting that Ritsuko was right. His surveillance did show that she spent a lot of her free time at home in front of the computer.  
  
"It's already three weeks.. What makes you think Asuka's still alive in there?" Shigeru asked.  
  
"At the very least we'll be able to salvage Unit 02." Ritsuko replied.  
  
Shigeru sighed softly. She stymied him yet again. He can't afford to trust her too much. Ritsuko had a hand in engineering the Third Impact behind everyone's back. Yet, NERV needed the Evas. Even with Unit 05, the Mass Production Eva on its way, he couldn't just abandon Unit 02. Relying too much on one Eva could lead to disaster.  
  
"You'll find that my recommendations are feasible, even with our budget and equipment restrictions." Ritsuko said again.  
  
Shigeru admitted defeat. "I'll forward it to the UN for approval."  
  
Ritsuko nodded her head in satisfaction. "If there's nothing else, Commander, I'll take my leave now."  
  
Shigeru scowled in assent, and Ritsuko efficiently rose from the chair she was sitting in, and stood up to leave. She took unhurried steps to the door, which she had to pull herself.  
  
There was a man standing outside the door. He smiled at her. Ritsuko barely nodded her acknowledgement, side-stepping Admiral Starling and getting him out of her way as quickly as possible.  
  
"Good morning, Commander," Admiral Starling said from the other side of the open door. Not bothering to wait for his response, he stepped through the door.  
  
Shigeru stood up to salute, which was returned. Starling pulled up a chair and sat down, his hands in his lap, leaning in the chair.  
  
"You do know why I'm here?" Starling asked.  
  
"Yes sir, Eva Unit 05" Shigeru replied.  
  
"That's right. Japan is entrusting us with the transfer of the Eva We're prepping the Eva for airlift from the USS Pine Bluff. It's a bit of a challenge landing in this crater, but I think the VTOL should be adequate,"  
  
"Yes sir, " Shigeru replied.  
  
"Once the Eva enters Japanese airspace ownership transfers to NERV. We drop your cargo, and she's all yours."  
  
"That sounds so simple," Shigeru commented.  
  
"Well yes, Commander, it does sound simple. It was a hell of a logistics nightmare for the Navy, but it's nothing we want to worry NERV about. We get things done, Commander. We always do...."  
  
Starling stopped speaking, his eyes caught on the file that Ritsuko earlier placed on Shigeru's desk.  
  
"Do tell me, Commander, if that's what I think it is?" Starling asked, his finger pointing at the thick volume.  
  
Shigeru cleared his throat, not that he was nervous, but the question did come unexpectedly. "Ah, that's the Chief Scientist's recommendations for salvaging Eva Unit 02."  
  
Starling's eyes widened a little. "Indeed? Do go on."  
  
"Well, I've told Ritsuko of the unfeasibility of the idea, and.."  
  
"Go on, Commander," Starling said. His artificial smile didn't change one bit.  
  
"I was planning on forwarding it to the UN, but I'm recommending against it." Shigeru finished, slowly picking up the huge bound volume and offering to Starling.  
  
"Well, I'm going to recommend you go for it," Starling said as his fingers closed around Ritsuko's proposal. "The world needs as many Evas as we can get, Commander. Never forget that."  
  
"If you say so, Admiral, but..." Shigeru stammered, at a loss for words.  
  
"We'll talk about this later. I have to oversee the transfer operations. Once the Eva is safely in your possession, I'll introduce you to the Sixth Child." Starling said as he got up to leave.  
  
"Sixth Child?" Shigeru asked. "I thought the Committee wanted to test Shinji for suitability first before invoking that option," He continued.  
  
"All in good time, Commander," Starling said as he briskly left Shigeru's office, the door closing behind him with a slight whoosh.  
  
Shigeru leant back in his chair, as far as the springs would allow him. He covered his worried brow with his arms, squinting a little at the bright ceiling lights.  
  
Sixth Child, he thought. Perhaps a last-minute candidate, he thought, trying to ease himself. Shigeru sighed inwardly, confused about the wishes of Admiral Starling. He wished they would make up their infernal minds whether Shinji should pilot an Eva or not. After all, today was the day the psychological assessment panel was due to check up on him.  
  
Shigeru shrugged helplessly, and set about to doing some paperwork instead.  
  
***********  
  
"Stand. Bow. Sit"  
  
Hikari dispensed with the formalities with practiced efficiency, but her mind was not on the mathematics lesson. Today was an eerily familiar day. The knock on the door, the men in suits, the look of surprise on Shinji's face which turned into doomed resignation when they took him away.  
  
Hikari now felt sorry for him. It seemed that he was destined to be an Eva pilot, and whatever free will he had didn't apply. She wished him well, wherever it was that they took him.  
  
Shinji was sweating, despite the air conditioning. Perhaps because on some instinctual level he felt he was in danger.  
  
There was a woman, a middle-aged, Chinese-looking woman, in a dark blue dress sitting in front of him. She held up a card with a strange looking ink-blot shape. She smiled as she spoke. "Now Shinji, this is the last card, tell me what this is?"  
  
"Uhh.. A flower? A bird?" Shinji guessed, trying to find the best answer that would suit the woman.  
  
To be sure, this was not such an unpleasant surprise for him. He usually knew that whenever his bodyguards took him away from class, it usually meant being driven back to the Geofront, where he was usually expected to pilot an Eva and save the world from another Angel. This time, the strange people just wanted him to answer questions. It was disturbing, but much better than facing the nightmare of the entry plug once again.  
  
Shinji nodded nervously, trying to signal that he had given his answer.  
  
The woman put the card away.  
  
"That's good, Shinji. Now, would you like to have a glass of water before we go on to the next round of tests?" the woman asked him.  
  
"I .. I'd like to take a walk around, get some fresh air," Shinji answered in his most confident voice. He didn't know who these people were, but they had the proper identifications, and his bodyguards surely would have done something if these people had meant him harm.  
  
"Go on ahead," the woman said, as she got up and opened the door.  
  
Shinji took tentative steps, but he was out of the trailer soon enough. It was large, attached to one of those huge American trucks he had seen on TV as a small boy. Both the truck and its trailer were painted white with the UN logo stenciled on the sides. A small group of people, old men and women stopped their conversation when they saw him walk out. Another group of people, wearing the dark suits of Section 2, stood nearby.  
  
Shinji looked up to the blue, cloudless sky, where a strange looking aircraft was flying westward. He strained his eyes to see what exactly was unusual about the plane. It seemed larger, and it was irregularly shaped, but he couldn't make out what was so unusual about it. Shinji looked away, turning his gaze to the green hillsides and the empty countryside. Truth be told, he really had no idea where he was. He was told he was still in the Kanto area, but that was it. There was no sign of the Tokyo 03 reconstruction as far he can see.  
  
"Ready to come back, Shinji?" someone called out from behind him.  
  
Shinji wordlessly turned around and went back in, so they can finish testing him, making sure that he can pilot an Eva. At least, these people were honest about it. Shinji took slow steps back into the white trailer, not really eager to confirm what he knew in his heart - that the old days were back again.  
  
He didn't feel bad about it. Somehow, even if the old days were back again, he just couldn't get too worked up about it. Maybe Hikari had a point. Maybe it should hurt a little to know that soon he will be trapped inside the Eva again, but he sincerely didn't feel any hurt.  
  
"Yes, Ma'am, I'm ready," Shinji answered.  
  
************  
  
Back in the Geofront crater, a large crowd gathered around the large helipad. It seemed like everyone at NERV was out there, standing in the heat of the midday sun, their eyes expectantly scanning the sky for their prize.  
  
Evangelion Unit 05 was attached to its transport plane which was now making its final approach to land vertically in the crater. The various NERV staff hesitantly took several steps back away from its shadow as it made its final descent to the crater floor. As the plane got closer all eyes were on the shape attached to the undercarriage of the black plane, with US Navy markings and insignia.  
  
Ritsuko Akagi narrowed her eyes, amazement briefly causing her mouth to gape.  
  
"They painted it purple?" She muttered silently to herself. Not that anyone could hear her, the roar of the engines were deafening as the plane got nearer to the ground, and the echo in the Geofront crater made things worse.  
  
Lower and lower the plane flew, lowering itself away from the sightless gaze of Rei Ayanami's giant head. It fired its thrusters harder as it sank below the crater lip, blowing eddies of dust on the crater floor, which got into Shigeru's eyes.  
  
Shigeru cursed, rubbing out the dust from his irritated eye, hoping that no one would notice him in such an undignified act.  
  
With a final thud, the plane finally touched down. Ritsuko stood with interest as the plane unlocked the clasps which held the Eva securely to its undercarriage. With an angry hiss, a giant purple shape loosened itself from the plane. It was recognizably the same Mass-Production type that Asuka mauled to a bloody mess, only to regenerate and trigger off the Third Impact. Evangelion Unit 05 finally loosened itself from its transport plane, and landed on the crater floor with a loud thump.  
  
The Eva was painted purple and green in a similar design to Unit 01, but the narrow eyes, the sharklike grin, the inhumanly shaped head, put paid to any resemblance. Some of the NERV staff visibly recoiled from the sight. They remembered what this Eva helped start almost a year ago. Shigeru stood in awe of the Eva, which now lay on its back under its transport plane. The cockpit of the plane opened, and Shigeru saw Admiral Starling wave at him, giving him the thumbs up sign.  
  
There was a girl with him, who looked too young to be military.  
  
"Must be the Sixth," Shigeru muttered.  
  
****************  
  
"Stand. Bow. Dismissed!"  
  
Hikari stood still at her desk along with the other students, who politely waited for the teacher to leave the room first, before rushing to the exits, boys pushing and pulling to be the first out, while the girls patiently waited. It didn't take long for the classroom to be emptied, and the courtyard was now alive with the sound of teenage chatter.  
  
Hikari stood, alone, at her desk.  
  
Shinji still hadn't returned. She remembered that back in the old days, in the war against the Angels, that probably meant an Angel attack was imminent, or he was injured, hurt.  
  
Hikari shrugged off the fear. She had no reason to worry unduely about his safety - he wasn't anyone special to her, was he? He was a friend, she supposed, but he was never as close to her as Asuka was. So why did she worry about him so?  
  
She shrugged off the feeling, and made her own way out, taking care to close the doors and windows before she left. It was time to return home to another lonely lunch.  
  
*************  
  
Starling and the girl took their seats opposite Shigeru in his office.  
  
"So where is she?" Starling asked, looking left and right searching for her.  
  
"Who?" Shigeru asked, before he suddenly remembered. "Ritsuko's with the engineering teams, working on the Eva."  
  
"I see. Well, I guess you'll have to introduce her to Ritsuko then. Well Commander, this is Virginia Langley, the USA's recommendation for the Sixth Child and pilot of Eva unit 05. She's related to the late Lt. Asuka Langley, and her DNA is, well, frighteningly close to Asuka's." Starling said, gently nudging the girl on. "Go on, Virginia, say hello to the Commander."  
  
Virginia slowly extended her hand, which Shigeru took. Her grip was weak, non-existent.  
  
"I am pleased to meet you," she said softly in a clear whisper. Shigeru took the limp hand and shook it, before quickly releasing her hand. He looked at her intently for a few moments. The Langley family resemblance was there, all right. The high cheekbones, the blue eyes, the reddish-brown hair. Shigeru supposed that given the right lighting and angle, she could look very much like Asuka. Only Asuka's temperament seemed to be missing, but he had only just met her.  
  
"She's about one year younger than the original Children, but she meets Marduk's criteria, as far as we can tell. She'll make a good pilot. If you take her, of course." Starling said. "Of course, it doesn't mean we can forego the Third Child option,"  
  
"How so?" Shigeru asked.  
  
"Virginia's totally untrained. We know she can sync with an Eva, but that's it."  
  
"I see. So you're suggesting we use Shinji as pilot of Eva 05 until Virginia can pilot?" Shigeru asked again, already knowing the answer but wanting Starling to confirm it.  
  
"If he can pilot. I really don't want to risk an insane Child piloting."  
  
Shigeru leaned back in his chair, looking at Starling, then Virginia. The girl had been very quiet all this time. Her eyes stared blankly at a spot just behind his left ear. Her legs remained crossed, her hands in her lap as she sat there like a good little girl as the adults talked.  
  
Virginia gave Shigeru the impression of someone who looked like Asuka but acted like Rei.  
  
"Well it looks like we've found the best course of action, don't you agree, Commander?" Starling asked, smiling even wider.  
  
Starling turned his head a little, so he can bring his lips to the girl's ear. He whispered something in her ear, which Shigeru couldn't lip-read. Virginia nodded her assent.  
  
Starling spoke again. "Well I can't really stay here too long. I need to return to my ship and report the successful handover of the Eva."  
  
"I see," Shigeru replied.  
  
"I have to take Virginia with me. Her guardian is what we'd call a little strong in the maternal department." Starling said.  
  
Shigeru chuckled at that almost-funny statement. Ritsuko suddenly came to mind.  
  
"I'll reintroduce the two of you later," Starling said, as he gently nudged Virginia to stand. "We'll keep in touch," he said, gently placing his hand on the girl's back, guiding her out of Shigeru's office.  
  
**************  
  
"Horaki's place? Well we can't really stop you but wouldn't you prefer to go home?" asked Shinji's bodyguard as he gently brought the car into cruise control. The black Mitsubishi felt like it was flying over the deserted highway. Shinji sat in the back, his hand twitching, opening and closing almost of their own volition. He clamped his other hand onto it, forcing it closed into a fist.  
  
"Take me there, please," Shinji replied.  
  
"Yes, sir," he replied, as the car continued to cruise along the highway.  
  
Several silent minutes later, as the outline of the Tokyo 3 reconstruction area came into view, his bodyguard spoke again.  
  
"Did they tell you?" he asked, surprising Shinji a little. In all his time at NERV, his bodyguards had always been quiet and unobstrusive  
  
"No." he answered, turning his face to look out the window.  
  
"Well, doctor?" Shigeru asked, leaning forward in his chair, impatiently tapping a pen on his desk. "How's the Eva?" he asked.  
  
Ritsuko paused for a moment, trying to find a proper, inoffensive word. Seeing Shigeru's impatient tapping, she decided not to bother. "Crippled," Ritsuko said with a hiss.  
  
"What?!" Shigeru thundered in shock. Ritsuko took perverse pleasure in seeing Shigeru flustered a little, but she made no outward display of pleasure, her attitude set on what Misato often called "cold bitch".  
  
"The day of Third Impact, these things had wings, an S2 Engine and regenerated even after Asuka mauled them, correct?" Ritsuko asked.  
  
"Yes. That's all true," Shigeru answered.  
  
Ritsuko's eyes narrowed as she started to recount the things that are wrong. "This Eva doesn't have them. No S2 engine, no wings. The internal battery will last exactly one minute after the power supply is cut. The armored bindings are a joke, even the alloy type used is wrong. That Eva will run, but going to be the weakest Eva we've ever had."  
  
"That's bad news," Shigeru said, nodding his head in agreement.  
  
"This Eva is not one of the original Mass Production units. It's brand new, and if you want me to put it down in writing, I will." Ritsuko said.  
  
. 


	8. A3I: Patterns

Judging by the change in temperature, Misato guessed it must be night by now. Not that it meant anything, locked away as she was in the windowless brig of some god-forsaken US Navy ship. She cursed her luck, wanting so badly not to die on that cold metal floor in the Geofront, only to be rewarded with this sick perversion of her wish.

They told her that she didn't die alone that horrible day, they told her that while coming back from the dead was usually a case for celebration, she was still a senior official at NERV, and as such, her name was on a wanted list for genocide.

She ran her fingers through her hair, absently trying to find and disentangle any knots. She wanted to give her poor brain some rest from thinking, but eventually, when the sun set, and in the sky she cannot see, the stars were blotted out by the red ring of abandoned souls, she would start thinking about it again.

Ikari Gendo's legacy of genocide.

And Ritsuko had the nerve to say that Kaji was sleazy.

NEON

GENESIS

EVANGELION

A3I: Established patterns.

Late afternoon, and the wise hid under air conditioning, leaving the streets empty, except for two schoolchildren.

"It's so hot nowadays," complained Hikari Horaki, turning towards her companion. "Don't you agree, Shinji?"

"Yes, yes I agree, it is hot," Shinji said, after giving the matter some thought.

"You could have gone home in a NERV car," Hikari commented, wiping beads of sweat from her brow. Walking home with Shinji everyday was not something she had planned, or even consciously wanted. The two of them seemingly fell into it, and it quickly became routine, a shared ritual of seeming normality between the two of them in a world gone insane.

"Yes, but I enjoy walking with.." Shinji stopped in mid-sentence, looking down on the pavement, watching his feet move, listening to the sound of his own footsteps. He caught a glance of Hikari's white school shoes, her steady pace effortlessly keeping up with him. It was something Shinji tried to adapt to. Asuka had always forced him keep up with her, and Rei walked slowly, yet somehow she always seemed to be waiting for him, always seemingly a few steps ahead.

"Rei," Shinji whispered, his eyes wandering into the far distance.

Several miles away from the hastily reconstructed city of Tokyo-03, nestled halfway between hills and the Pacific Ocean, was the gigantic head of Rei Ayanami, the First Child and the embodiment of the Eighteenth Angel. It was lay there lifeless, since the day of the Third Impact, the giant blood-red eyes always seeming to look right through him.

"Shinji, what are you.." Hikari said, noticing that Shinji had stopped walking.

"Rei." Hikari muttered. She stood still for a moment, unsure as to what to do, while Shinji stood there, still as a statue, and he kept staring at the split head, the size of a hill in its own right.

She tentatively reached for his arm, then as she found her own confidence, gently tugged at his shirt sleeve.

"Come on Shinji. What's past is past Leave it be," Hikari said, trying to draw his attention away from the ghoulish sight.

"How can I," Shinji whispered. "It's always behind me."

Hikari exhaled deeply, his words leaving a strange chill.

The ring of a cellphone broke the silence.

Hikari and Shinji looked at each other briefly, before he realized that it was his phone.

"I must be late again." He muttered as he answered his cellular phone.

Hikari understood well enough, giving Shinji a pat on the shoulder before she continued the long walk home. Shinji's voice grew faint with each step she took.

"I understand…Yes, Fifth and Shimonoseki. Yes I will." His voice faded away, until she turned a corner.

Ritsuko Akagi put down the phone, and sank into the plush padded seat.

"He'll be here, Commander Aoba. Someone's fetching him right now."

Shigeru Aoba, Commander of NERV, nodded curtly, looking around him. Ritsuko's office was the same as it always was. Freakishly neat. Not a file out of place. A small pair of clay kitten paperweights were the only personal effects on the desk. A pack of cigarettes and lighter on the corner of her desk was quickly snapped up by Dr. Akagi, who stuffed them carelessly in her white coat pocket.

"So what else brings you to my room," Ritsuko asked, matter-of-factly "with the Sixth Child?" Ritsuko's chin thrust forward, indicating the slim teenage girl that stood slightly behind Shigeru. The girl shuffled slightly behind the commander, her pale blue eyes avoiding Ritsuko's own. Her hand listlessly fiddled with the suction controls of her plugsuit.

"As the guardian of the Third Child, you must ensure that he sticks to the schedule," Shigeru admonished. "Virginia can't wait forever for him."

"This arrangement is ridiculous, Commander." Ritsuko complained through gritted teeth.

"What do you expect me to do, chain her here?" Shigeru snapped back.

"That Evangelion is ours. The pilot should be ours too," Ritsuko muttered.

Virginia stood dumbly behind Shigeru, staring blankly ahead, trying hard not to be a part of this harsh exchange.

"Well, as I remember it, you were the one that wanted so badly to keep Shinji out of the Entry Plug. And _someone_ has to pilot. I think it's disrespectful towards Virginia for him to be late for training. It isn't like him at all. He was never like this when Misato was around," Shigeru complained again.

"Misato, Commander Aoba, is dead." Ritsuko snarled, her pale hands moving under the desk where she can freely ball them into fists.

Shigeru paused, sensing that he was standing on some invisible line that he didn't want to cross. Not just yet.

"Make sure Eva Unit 05 is ready, Doctor," Shigeru said.

Ritsuko nodded, feigning disinterest.

When Shigeru turned to leave, he didn't notice that Ritsuko was staring daggers at Virginia.

Closing the door, Shigeru and Virginia walked hurriedly out of the hastily-constructed concrete building that housed Ritsuko's office. The heavy door opened slowly, letting the bright mid-afternoon sun in.

"Bright," Virginia said quietly, quickly shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight. Squinting, she slowly followed Shigeru outside.

Shigeru turned his head in his direction. "I noticed that you're not very comfortable out in daylight. Is everything all right with you?" he asked.

Virginia shook her head slowly, strands of red hair slowly flying left and right with the movement. "No sir. It's just, too bright," she answered, slowly enunciating each word, as if she had to think carefully what words to use.

"I see." Shigeru waited for a few seconds for Virginia to catch up before he started walking again, this time keeping a slower pace, to let Virginia keep up with him. Squinting, she took smaller, hesitant steps.

"Come on," Shigeru said quietly, as he slowly, carefully brought his arm around the fifteen year old girl's waist. Satisfied that she didn't panic at his touch, he tried to guide her to walk towards the center of the crater that housed NERV, towards the purple monstrosity that was Evangelion Unit 05.

"Commander?," Virginia asked, suddenly, breaking the silence.

"What is it?" Shigeru replied, although he was not stopping. Onward they walked towards the Evangelion, past beige-shirted operations staff, towards the technicians in bright orange jumpsuits.

"Why do you hate her?"

Shigeru stopped dead in his tracks, the arm that was wrapped around Virginia's waist slackened, falling away from her, to return to his own side, where it hung limply for a fraction of a second, before the fingers curled into a fist.

"I never thought of it that way," Shigeru answered quietly.

A small, quiet "Oh" was all that Virginia said, before the two continued walking towards the Eva.

"Ow"

"Anything the matter, ma'am?" the sailor asked.

Misato didn't answer, instead she covered her eyes with her hand. Once the stabbing pain in her eyes receded a few seconds later, she muttered, "damn sun's too bright"

"The brig does that to you. All that time in the dark hurts your eyes when you come out in the light," the sailor answered, as if he had seen this all the time.

"Yeah," Misato answered, briefly distracted from wondering what was the real reason why was she being brought out onto the deck of the American AEGIS cruiser.

A voice from behind her brought her attention back to matter at hand.

"Admiral on deck!" the sailor shouted, giving Admiral Starling a salute.

Carelessly replying the salute, the ever-smiling Admiral quickly ordered the sailor escorting Misato at ease.

"Ah. Colonel Misato Katsuragi. Director of Combat Operations, fifth on the list of twenty five most wanted NERV senior staff," Starling said, eyeing his captive, giving her an appreciative once-over. Misato was still quite the looker, despite her general dishevelled state.

Misato didn't want to get into a staring match with the Admiral, she didn't want to be seen as too confrontational, so she looked slightly to his left, past his ear, looking past the deck and out into the calm blue waters of the Sea of Japan.

"Why have you called for me?" Misato asked, keeping her voice level, not wanting to show him just how dazed and confused she really was.

Starling smiled, and told her. "Well, Colonel Katsuragi, I'm just here to give you the good news. A little late, and I'm quite sorry about that, but the United Nations has decided not to prosecute you for complicity in genocide."

Misato blinked.

"You're free to go, Katsuragi," Starling replied. "I suppose you'll want your old job back?"

Misato nodded once, just to be safe.

"That's between you and Aoba. Arrangements will be made to transfer you back to Japan," he said.

"Thank you.. I guess.." was all Misato could manage as a reply.

"Aoba?" Misato pondered, staring away into the distance. Certainly the first in many surprises to come, she thought.

"How much time do we have?" Shigeru asked.

"About two hours. Plenty of time, commander. Don't worry so much." Ritsuko said, leaning back against a pillar. She was back in the command center, which was now fully sunken into the ground. Above, on the floor of the massive crater that was the Geofront, the purple form of Evangelion Unit 05 stood, its shark-like head bowed low, its spinal cavity opened, exposing the gaping black maw which was the socket for the Entry Plug.

At the foot of the monstrous Eva, two figures in plug suits stood quietly. Shinji Ikari twitched a little, trying to hide the discomfort he felt, wearing the plugsuit under the hot afternoon sun.

His companion, Virginia Langley, however, stood still, even when a drop of sweat fell from her brow, she did not even wipe it off. She kept looking blankly up and down at the Eva for several minutes.

"That's my Eva," Virginia said quietly, but enough to be heard by Shinji.

"Yes, it is." Shinji replied. Then as an afterthought he added a cheerless "Don't be afraid."

Virginia turned to face him, blue eyes staring straight at him. For a few seconds she kept staring, puzzled.

"Afraid of it? " Virginia replied. "Why?"

"No happiness comes from it." Shinji replied, the weight of truth in his voice.

"I see." Virginia replied.

"What do you feel?" Shinji asked her.

"Feel?"

"About piloting, about Eva." Shinji replied. "Why do you pilot Eva?" he asked.

"You won't," she replied simply. Shinji asked no more questions after that, and said nothing even as the two of them walked to the waiting entry plugs, one for each of them. Once inside, waiting cranes will raise the entry plugs, one by one, into the Evangelion.

Virginia didn't even look back before going in, the entry plug closing behind her with a familiar hiss.

Shinji just had to respect her bravery. He wasn't about to go into the coffin-like confines of the entry plug without one last look at the sky. Shrugging, he buried his fears that he will never again emerge from the entry plug, and went in quietly, the cover of the entry plug sliding itself closed behind him with a whoosh.

In the Command Center, all eyes were glued to the various monitors and instrument panels, as NERV prepared to activate its last remaining Evangelion.

"Plugs are sealed. Beginning A-10 nerve connection" intoned a technician somewhere.

While Shigeru tensely watched the screens for any sign that something could go wrong, Ritsuko merely folded her arms over her chest, her eyes closed, her head bowed, biting her lower lip, giving the impression to an outsider that she cared only about getting things done so she could go home.

"Sync ratio is above starting line," reported someone.

"Good. Switch primary control to Sixth Child, Third Child on dummy." Ritsuko commanded. The old NERV launching procedures were burned into her memory from the first war against the Angels, and she could issue the launch orders backwards in her sleep if she wanted to.

"Release bindings," Ritsuko said quietly, her eyes still closed.

As the Eva was freed from its bindings, it swayed back and forth on unsteady feet, as if it could fall over from nothing more than a strong gust of wind. Yet Ritsuko kept her eyes closed, not wanting to be distracted with the obvious. She took deep, slow breaths, listening intently for the next shouted reports.

"Sync ratio normal"

Her mind processed the report, decided there was nothing to worry about, and waited for the next announcement.

"It feels.. strange," a small, soft female voice said over the communications.

"It's normal," Shigeru replied, trying to calm Virginia down. Quietly, Ritsuko snapped out of her seeming apathy, walking over to the main instrumentation panels for the Eva, standing over the hapless operators like an angry titan.

"Think your actions through, then do it," Shigeru advised, unncessarily, as that bit of information had been ingrained into everyone who ever got into an Entry Plug.

"I don't like this," Ritsuko muttered, warily eyeing the synchrographs.

"First things first, Virginia, try to walk." Shigeru advised, ignoring Ritsuko's misgivings, eyes and attention fully fixed on the video feed coming in from above ground.

"Get ready for anything," Ritsuko whispered to the technicians manning the Eva control panels. They nodded grimly.

"Eva walking," Virginia replied tersely, pushing the controls.

The Eva shuddered, then lifted its right foot.

Nobody in the control center dared to even exhale.

Then the Eva leant forward, and the raised foot slammed into the dusty ground, raising a large cloud of dust into the air. The other foot lifted slowly, carefully.

However, Virginia somehow caught the left foot on the Eva's umbilical power cord, and the behemoth Evangelion Unit 05 slowly toppled, and fell.

"Virgina, regain control!" Shigeru shouted in panic.

Ritsuko uncovered a switch on the control panel and flipped it before anyone could so much as ask what she was doing.

The Evangelion fell towards the ground nevertheless, but at the last moment, its arms reached forward to break its fall, leaving the Eva supported on its two arms.

"Dummy plug activated," came the report.

"You mean Shinji," Ritsuko replied.

Shinji had the Eva correct itself, but Shigeru wasn't in the mood to continue the test. Virginia's first time in the entry plug was shortened by about two hours, as the test was officially classified "Aborted". Ritsuko couldn't help but snort derisively as she officially signed the report.

The late afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the Geofront crater, but the high-speed fan some kind technician had set up cooled the Children somewhat. Shinji and Virginia had yet to receive permission to change out of the plug suits, and plugsuits were never meant to be worn under the sun.

Shinji had splashed himself with water from a barrel, washing off the precious LCL that clung to him like a slimy layer of orange blood.

"You don't want to clean up?" he asked Virginia, who still had the vile-smelling LCL in her hair and on her plugsuit.

"I … nobody's allowed me to yet. I don't want to make everyone angrier." Virginia replied, her eyes still watching the Eva as cranes started to move it to its makeshift restraint.

Shinji narrowed his eyes. I seen this behaviour before, he thought, his mood darkening at the sudden, unwanted association with the now-gone First Child.

"I should... Thank you for your… help." Virginia said, turning in his direction, looking him straight in the eyes.

"I don't think they'll punish you, Virginia," Shinji said. "You don't have to apologize."

Virginia smiled weakly, then returned to staring at her Eva. Her thoughts were most definitely unhappy, Shinji could see. He lazily grabbed his bucket, half-filling it with some water.

"Wash it off. Unless you like everything to smell like blood for the next three days," Shinji said, then quietly walked away, thinking that the girl wouldn't be comfortable with him watching her clean up. At least, that was what Asuka was like, and Virginia had such a creepy resemblance to her, he can't help but instinctively act like she really was Asuka sometimes.

The sun hung low in the western sky, as Shigeru, Ritsuko and Virginia waited at the Geofront's helipad.

A helicopter came into view from the ocean. As expected, Starling had come back to pick up the precious new pilot.

Ritsuko covered her eyes, knowing full well that the backwash of the rotor blades would kick up dust into her eyes.

The helicopter landed, not even turning off its engines as its occupants got off. One was probably Starling himself, the one in the white Navy uniform. The other one was a woman in a shabby grey jumpsuit, who got off the helicopter after him and walked towards NERV's two senior officers with a confidence that indicated she was no low-ranking lackey, but someone who had seen it all, a woman who took no nonsense, and the look on her face was that of strong anger.

When she recognized who it was, Ritsuko drew in such a deep breath her lungs felt like they wanted to explode.

"Misato?"


End file.
